What type of Cloud infrastructure best suits your business?

The global Cloud computing market is forecast to boom from $445.3 billion in 2021 to $947.3 billion by 2026. This skyrocketing growth is fueled by the many ways businesses across the globe are seeing direct impacts on their bottom line from Cloud adoption. It’s led many businesses to consider this: what type of Cloud infrastructure is right for my business?

CloudBolt surveyed 500 senior IT, DevOps, SecOps, and FinOps leaders from around the world, and 78% say they have too many Clouds throughout their enterprise and that their current Cloud approach has created security vulnerabilities. 

But many leaders are still pushing forward with their Cloud transformation, especially when it coems to BI and analytics. For example by adding Qlik Sense and Vizlib’s value-adding solutions to their company’s data processing as a way to save time and free up their developers from repetitive and arduous tasks. 

Some of the issues of cloud adoption arise from a lack of understanding of Cloud infrastructure and how it affects all areas of a business. In this post, we will dive deep into the most common types of Cloud infrastructure and what they are best used for. 

The three types of Cloud infrastructure 

Cloud infrastructure can be broken down into three categories: public, private, and hybrid. Here’s what each of those means. 

Public Cloud 

Public Cloud is the most common Cloud infrastructure and is used by businesses that range from startups to enterprises. 

The computing functionality for public Cloud has a huge range and can cover things such as email and storage (think Google apps) all the way up to enterprise-grade OS platforms that can be used for software development and testing.

When you use a public Cloud, you tap into an existing resource. The Cloud vendor is the one responsible for developing, managing, and maintaining the data centres across the network. 

Many businesses find this is a preferable option versus having an on-site data centre because it is highly elastic and scalable. You can use more resources as you need them and less when you don’t. 

For example, if you are a business that operates seasonally, such as one in the travel and tourism industry, you may have peak months when traffic to your sites is double or triple what it is in the low season.

According to Similarweb, global visits to Booking.com increased 4.75% in June compared to May, and this was a surge of 26.6% compared to June 2021. With the Cloud these peaks and troughs in website traffic can easily be managed. 

With public cloud, you can make use of the additional Cloud infrastructure to support your platform and website when there is a higher volume of traffic and then scale down for the low season. This then reduces your IT cost as you pay for what you use rather than running at full capacity when it’s not needed. 

Some businesses can be sceptical of public Cloud. The term “public Cloud” can shoot fear into the heart of business leaders as they assume it’s somewhere anyone can go into and will bring security vulnerabilities to their organisation. This is not the case. Public Cloud is secure, and while someone else is hosting your data for you, it’s still private, and only those who have the correct permission will be able to access it.

 Private Cloud 

With a private Cloud infrastructure, your organisation will build and own your Cloud components and host them in your own data centre. 

This type of Cloud infrastructure means you are not sharing the Cloud with other organisations or dependent on a Cloud vendor. In this environment, you have a dedicated infrastructure and services that provide you with versatility and convenient Cloud-delivered IT service, while also allowing you greater control and management over the data centre.  

Typically, this type of Cloud infrastructure will be best suited to businesses that have a greater need to control their data or manage the security of infrastructure assets. This may be because you operate critical platforms or collect sensitive data and must adhere to specific regulations and governance. 

 Hybrid 

The hybrid Cloud model is exactly what you are thinking – a mix of both public and private Clouds. 

Your organisation may implement a hybrid model by using a private Cloud to run specific areas of its IT services, such as critical applications or hosting sensitive data. In addition to having a private Cloud for these workloads, you may also implement a public Cloud service to handle your demand spikes and quickly scale your Cloud infrastructure when needed. 

Why Qlik Sense & Qlik Sense Cloud are essential to your data journey 

Moving to the Cloud is a big but inevitable step for many organisations. It can be a complex process, but luckily, that’s where Qlik + Vizlib lead the way. 

For Vizlib customers looking to migrate all or some of their processes on Qlik SaaS (Qlik Cloud Services), we assist in the migration and ensure that your teams will get the same easy-to-use experience they’re familiar with their current on-premise infrastructure.

The combination of the user experience across your platforms, such as Qlik SaaS + Vizlib on-premise and in the Cloud can lead to numerous benefits such as advanced analytics and game-changing writeback capabilities.

Ready to shift your business into the modern era? Learn how Qlik + Vizlib supports user-friendly advanced analytics and a smooth transition to the Cloud with Qlik Cloud and Qlik SaaS.