Flip Side of Public Clouds
Cloud repatriation has become a new global trend. More and more large companies decide to move their data and workload from public clouds back to on-premise or private clouds. What pushes enterprises to invest in hardware and build their own infrastructure? Why do organizations sign contracts for managed private clouds instead of enjoying the happiness and prosperity promised by hyper-scale cloud providers?
Publicity Dangers
In August 2021, media agencies exploded with the news about the data breaches in the public clouds that resulted in unsanctioned exposure of secret documents and private data.
Due to the public cloud storage insecurity, someone disclosed online the terrorist watch list. It was compiled by the U.S. government and contained 1.9 million private records: names, genders, dates of birth, citizenships, passport numbers and no-fly indicators.
Moreover, it took three long weeks to take the suddenly disclosed database down after discovering the problem and informing the authorities. It appears that the unauthorized parties had enough time to access and use the information according to their intentions — for sale or even further attacks.
Some days later, one of the largest public cloud providers warned its private and enterprise cloud computing customers that their data was no longer secret. Intruders might have had access to the information and could not only read or copy the data but also change or even delete something from the central databases of the world’s largest enterprise. Of course, the hyper-scale provider cloud reported on fixing the issue immediately and reassured its customers that the only intruder was the cyber security company that discovered the problem. But there is no smoke without fire, and the data security in public clouds is a questionable point, especially for enterprises responsible for the data privacy of their customers and clients.
Commenting on the watchlist case, security experts named public cloud misconfigurations the main issue of data exposure to the internet. The database placed in public clouds is an easy catch for the intruders as the data has been left open by companies, numerous suppliers, and vendors.
To minimize the risks of such a data breach, organizations should constantly monitor all resources deployed in their enterprise environment. Unfortunately, the public cloud can not guarantee all the deployed resources are safe, accessible and controlled by the organization. Sometimes enterprises could be surprised by the real situation within their public cloud environment.
However, not only security issues push the organization to relocate their data and critical workloads from the public cloud to a more predictable and controlled environment.
Broken Hopes for Cloud Economy
In the early days, the companies truly believed that the public cloud saved money. And today, many of them are trapped with the extensively growing cloud costs.
To place all data on the public cloud is not cheap and safe. Getting the data back is often charged additionally and takes time. The economy of scale actively promoted by the hyper-scale cloud providers has become a dream that did not come true. Besides, additional services and new valuable functions should be paid above the approved cloud costs.
Lower prices were the number one reason public clouds attracted customers. However, the so-called “only pay for what you use” is just theoretical, and the reality is that the users found themselves spending more and more instead of seeing the prices reduced as expected. Years ago, the clients of hyperscale cloud platforms providers predicted that the costs would drop even more thanks to economies of scale, allowing public clouds to operate with lower margins compared to on-premise solutions. Instead, taking advantage of the speculation, at some point, public cloud providers opted for maximizing the profits, reducing the economies of scale. Thus the clients found the cloud bill spiralling out of control.
The companies also find themselves tied to a specific cloud provider because of the vendor lock-in effect. Major public cloud providers invested large amounts of money into tools that make it extremely affordable to access their services and quickly and seamlessly handle large volumes of workloads and data, like AI or data management. It requires long term collaborations with other providers, which precluded moving workloads from one cloud provider to another. And, of course, the tools and services are proprietary and are not always compatible with other cloud environments.
As a result, the companies spend much more on the public cloud than they planned. Looking back, they regret their decision, and it is not easy to switch the solutions as their workload has grown significantly. Not easy, but possible.
Nowadays, the illusion of cheap public clouds is coming to an end. The latest market trend is an “unclouding” or “cloud repatriation”. The companies migrate their workloads and data from the public cloud to a cloud located within an on-premise data center or to a colocation provider. According to “Private Cloud Services — Global Market Trajectory & Analytics”, the global value of private cloud services will reach $13.2 billion by 2026, compared to its $4.9 billion value in 2020.
Keep Calm and Stay Private
Private cloud is not even an alternative for companies focused on control, security, performance, and costs. It is the only right way to build the cloud infrastructure and organize the key enterprise workloads. Private or on-premise cloud solutions offer complete control over security parameters because all security efforts are done in-house or outsourced to a managed security partner. Private cloud provides the ability to incorporate tailored security features required for industries like healthcare and finance. The security tools available with a private cloud include higher levels of authentication, API, additional layers of automation, and the great potential for scalability if required.
At a certain workload growth scale, the private cloud is definitely the lowest-cost cloud solution for enterprises. For instance, Sardina’s FishOS, an efficient cloud management software, offers its customers the “pay-as-you-grow” pricing model to provide organizations with confidentiality in planning their budgets. The possibility to tailor the cloud according to your specific business needs is also an essential option that is only possible within a private cloud solution.
The migration from public clouds results in more efficient in-house economics with benefits in terms of agility and the ability to handle data securely. Private cloud solutions bring more flexibility, scalability to the environment. The enterprises can precisely plan their cloud budget with no surprises in the future.
The source: www.sardinasystems.com
