Cloud Deployment Models

There are four ways businesses and government agencies can deploy cloud services. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines each model this way:

Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Community cloud. The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.

Public cloud. The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.

Hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds).

Cloud Deployment and Small Business

Which cloud model should you be using in your business? It depends on your contractual requirements and business needs. Information Management says, “Choosing from the handful of deployment options will largely depend on the IT maturity and size of your organization. Factors to consider include migration costs, elasticity, security needs, multi-tenancy, and the critical nature of the information and services going to the cloud.”

Mike Kavis, chief technology officer of Kavis Technology Consulting, says that unless you’re a government or large multi-location conglomerate, you don’t need a private cloud. “The concept of a hybrid cloud makes perfect sense where you keep your data in the private cloud and push as much processing as possible to the public cloud to get the benefits of cheap processing cycles,” says Kavis.

In fact, hybrid clouds may make the best sense for small and medium-sized businesses. According to Storage Switzerland, hybrid clouds help reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and improve return on investment (ROI) with these advantages:

• No large capital outlay for new equipment, infrastructure, personnel or maintenance
• Scalable capacity on demand without a corresponding investment in infrastructure or personnel
• Low, predictable and manageable costs
• No costs associated with equipment obsolescence
• No additional power, cooling costs, space or storage costs
• Continuous data replication of saved data to secondary sites
• Easily deployed as a stand-alone solution or integrated with existing file archiving and
  virtualization technologies

Hybrid clouds do, however, present some drawbacks. Writer Hannah Wald points out in an IANewsletter article [PDF] that hybrid clouds “share vulnerabilities in the system’s least secure areas and present new vulnerabilities. For instance, if it is easy for a user to switch between clouds on his or her desktop computer, it is also easy for that user to make a mistake and expose sensitive data. In addition, integrated clouds mean integrated complex systems, which by definition are rife with potential security vulnerabilities.”