Winning with Top Public Cloud Computing Strategies

Shifting to a public cloud is considered the first step to business digitization, especially for businesses willing to be agile and collaborate seamlessly. However, it is easier said than done.

You need to choose a reliable cloud service provider, understand how the cloud should be utilized for your business, figure out how its different components function, create a public cloud computing strategy, and take measures for its security.

So, whether you are a business professional with no technological knowledge or someone proficient at tech stuff, you will need expert assistance while migrating to the public cloud or any type of cloud.

We have compiled everything you need to know in this article to serve as your comprehensive guide in the public cloud adoption journey. Read ahead to answer your questions, clear up your doubts, and have a clear vision while you deploy the public cloud computing technology for your business.

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How Does the Public Cloud Work?

Public cloud computing is the modern way to deploy IT infrastructure. You may consider it an alternative to conventional on-premise IT infrastructure, such as data centers and desktop applications altogether.

First of all, what is a public cloud? Let’s decipher this term in two parts:

1. A cloud hosts your data and applications on remote servers, and cloud computing technology enables you to access your data and applications through the internet.

2. A public cloud allows companies to rent cloud space from a third-party cloud service provider. Your company’s services, tools, storage space, security provisions, and functionalities share the cloud hosting environment with other companies. Communication with the public cloud happens over the public internet, i.e., the World Wide Web.

Coming back to how it works, a public cloud requires you to migrate your data and operations to it. For this, you must choose a trustworthy cloud service provider whose cloud offerings match your requirements.

A standard public cloud service provider might not fulfill your bandwidth and performance requirements in this scenario. So, instead of compromising your needs, go for specialized public cloud companies that tailor their services to your unique needs, like Ridge’s Cloud Platform.

After finalizing a service provider, you need to perform data and application migration to move all of your data from your current storage solution to the cloud. Your organization can then access, use, manage, and update migrated components through the internet.

Let’s go into more detail about this crucial data migration and what it means to use a public cloud for your business operations.

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Public Cloud Architecture

Public clouds have a multi-tenant architecture. So, multiple users and organizations share cloud storage and computing resources. However, other tenants (users) cannot access your data or applications, as it requires authorization through a password or other identity verification method.

Shared infrastructure in a public cloud is logically separated for all tenants and distributed among various data centers to share the workload efficiently.

Public cloud architecture, for you, also depends upon the service model you have chosen. Your options for types of public cloud service models and related public cloud examples are:

‍Public Cloud Computing Strategies

For a successful and viable cloud implementation, it’s wise to have an adequate public cloud computing strategy. Here are the key considerations:

Application Migration Strategy 

Your business must finalize its approach for application migration while creating the public cloud strategy. Your approach could be one, or a combination, of these:

1. Rebuild your applications for the cloud;
2. Lift your applications and shift them to cloud platform without any significant changes;
3. Refactor your applications to ensure they function correctly in a cloud environment;
4. Skip moving the applications.

Consider priority, timeline, essentiality, public cloud options, and cost while deciding for each application.

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Data Migration

When your organization has a tremendous amount of data, move essential data to the cloud to save costs and accelerate response times. You can use a slow migration by internal resources approach or just offline migration to digital devices for the rest of the data.

Cost optimization strategy 

Before making a final decision on a public cloud service provider, make sure to control the cost of your cloud services solution by eliminating unnecessary services before migration.

Do your research and take advantage of discount programs, if any.

Also, utilize autoscaling to save massive money. With autoscaling, you may downscale or upscale your virtual resources and cloud services according to your needs. So, you will not be paying for unnecessary services and features. In the case of on-premises IT infrastructure, such need-based scaling is impossible.

Service model strategy

As discussed above, public clouds come in three models:

• Infrastructure as a service
• Platform as a service
• Software as a service.

Each one works differently. (Refer to the chart in the Public Cloud Architecture section to understand the key differences.)

Consider these differences, choose an implementation that fits your needs, and then make a decision.

Furthermore, keep in mind that you may shift to hybrid cloud and multi-cloud, so keep your options open for upscaling or integration.

Benefits and Challenges of Public Cloud Computing

By the end of 2020, 31% of enterprises chose public clouds over other forms of cloud computing, says Techjury. The marketing research firm Markets and Markets expects the global market worth of public cloud computing to reach $800+ billion by 2025. These figures are a clear indicator that public cloud computing is cementing itself in the market flawlessly.

But, why are so many organizations turning to the public cloud? Let’s explore the benefits of the public cloud.

Advantages of Public Cloud

Here are some of the main reasons that make the public cloud a top choice for businesses:

• In the public cloud model, cloud vendors offer shared resources for their customers. It leads to service delivery at a reduced cost. Companies don’t need their own dedicated on-premises IT infrastructure to make public cloud computing work.

• Users get visibility into factors like network usage, computing, and performance analysis in real-time. Having such detail enables companies to make data-driven decisions and create effective business strategies for the future.

• You get better infrastructure and traffic scalability. Users are allowed to use the resources as per the need of the application, so you never run out of storage space.

• Better resource access is possible with the public cloud. Users have access to all kinds of networking, installation, and virtualization resources. As service providers can enable these resources on a per-use basis, you only pay for what you need.

Disadvantages of Public Cloud

Though everything we said above about the benefits of cloud computing is true, there are certain challenges to public cloud:

Users have no control over internal resources like physical hardware standards, automation, access management, and technical support. Hence, the only option is to accept features of the public cloud as service providers offer them, which may mean compromising on business-specific needs.

• Users cannot add their own security layers, making them more susceptible to cyber-attacks.

• With constant GDPR updates, every public cloud user must undergo frequent compliance checks.

• In the case of system or technical failures on the vendor side, users suffer, even if they are not at fault. This unplanned downtime hinders performance and reputations.

Public Cloud Computing and Business Strategy

The use cases for businesses vary with the service model you have chosen:

• For IaaS users, server(s), public clouds can host server(s), operating systems, databases, and data.
• Analytics, software testing, and database management service providers can go for the PaaS model.

• SaaS solution users can digitize their business operations, like customer resource management (CRM), human resources (HR), project management, invoice generation, and more.

Public clouds are helpful for many sectors including, but not limited to:

• Retail
• Manufacturing
• Image Processing
• Drones
• Gaming
• and many more..

Differences between Public Clouds, Private Clouds, and Hybrid Clouds

Not sure about the difference between public and private cloud services or hybrid cloud solutions?

Fundamental differences of cloud-types:

Public cloud is a term used for a type of cloud computing infrastructure involving shared resources managed by a single vendor, not deployed at the user’s site.

Users can get started with public cloud services after paying a fixed monthly rental fee. In return, the vendor takes care of service delivery, system maintenance, and other crucial factors.

Private cloud is a proprietary cloud computing infrastructure designed as per the needs of a particular organization. It handles the data resources of only one company and is accessible by authorized persons only. It is a single-tenant architecture. The entire responsibility of resource deployment and management is taken care of by the company itself.

Hybrid cloud uses public and private clouds to create a network of interconnected clouds. Both the internal and external service providers work in association for hybrid cloud service delivery. It deals with the limitations of the public cloud, meaning that the users don’t have to set up the resources for the site.

Ridge’s New Public Cloud Paradigm

There are so many variations on public cloud business strategies, and no one size fits all. But what’s most important for application owners is to have a flexible cloud architecture that matches their specific IT and locality requirements as well their existing infrastructure.

To address the challenge, Ridge has developed a new public cloud paradigm in which local data centers’ existing capacity is transformed into modern PaaS offerings, such as managed Kubernetes, container orchestration, and object storage services. These managed services — all accessed through a single API — enable data centers to offer their customers cloud-native capabilities without needing the expertise to run the services themselves.

Additional Ridge features, such as VPN and IaaS capabilities, facilitate full interoperability with any hybrid or multi-cloud architecture. As a result, enterprises can build a customized cloud computing strategy, taking into account their existing IT architecture, in the locations of their choosing.

Want to learn more about Ridge’s unique public cloud? book a free demo!

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the available cloud computing strategies?

A cloud computing strategy is the cloud deployment plan for a business, aligned to its business execution strategies and budget. It serves as a guide for cloud migration, operations through the cloud, and organizational resources maintenance. Details like the public cloud service model, cost customization strategy, data migration plan, and application migration strategy are a few parts of an ideal public cloud computing strategy.

What is public cloud computing?

Public cloud computing refers to leveraging your business’s computing services through shared resources in a public cloud for your data and applications.

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What is a public cloud solution?

A public cloud solution offers a set of features from a third-party cloud service provider, leveraged at a subscription-based pricing plan. Businesses or individuals can use these solutions from a reliable service provider when using a public cloud.

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Who manages the public cloud?

Third parties manage and lease public clouds as pooled virtual resources to multiple tenants. The public cloud company that is providing you the cloud computing services owns the hardware and infrastructure.

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How should I conduct cloud computing strategy planning?

For business data storage, software testing, software development, business applications, providing streaming services, hosting business emails, and more, you can use a public cloud. Ideally, when your demands are predictable, or you want to set up a testing or development environment, the public cloud makes the best choice.

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Is a public cloud cheaper than a private cloud?

In general, public clouds are cost-effective and flexible enough to serve most organizations’ needs. However, private clouds could be cheaper in some cases depending upon the set of computing facilities you are leveraging.