Public vs private cloud: what is the difference?

Public cloud shares a provider’s infrastructure between many customers under the provider’s controls. A private environment is dedicated to one organisation, with placement, access and administration decided and recorded by that organisation.

What does private cloud architecture involve?

Deciding what needs to be private, placing compute and data together deliberately, separating ordinary use from administration, and planning updates, backups and rebuilds so the environment stays maintainable.

Is a private cloud more secure?

It is more controllable. Security comes from the boundary being drawn and enforced: an isolated service that routes every request through an uncontrolled dependency has not solved the problem. We write the boundary down before building it.

Deliberate separation

Your workload. A clear boundary.

Private computing environments for applications and data that need deliberate placement, access and administration.

Discuss the work

Illustrative engineering modelPlanning, not a live environment

Application

Give the workload a defined boundary.

Keep its data, dependencies and deployment context understandable.

To agreeAccess / change / recovery

01Inside the work

What needs to be private?

Identify the data, applications and administration paths that need separation. State who may use them, where processing can happen and which outside services are permitted. That turns a broad privacy requirement into design decisions.

02Inside the work

Put compute and data together deliberately.

Consider how applications reach storage, databases and connected systems. An environment that isolates one service but routes every request through an uncontrolled dependency has not solved the whole problem.

Illustrative private environment · not a customer system

Place, bound, control, recover. The plan is drawn before the first server is ordered.

03Inside the work

Separate use from administration.

Define ordinary user access, service identities and privileged maintenance. Control remote entry, protect credentials and keep an inventory of the components inside the boundary.

04Inside the work

Keep it maintainable.

Plan updates, backups, monitoring and restoration alongside deployment. Document what can change independently and how the environment can be rebuilt. Private infrastructure still needs a clear operating owner.

05A useful next step

Bring the workload and its restrictions.

An application outline, current architecture and access or placement requirements help us discuss a design. Available hardware, hosting arrangements and ongoing service duties are confirmed for the particular environment.

Before an enquiry

Questions we are asked.

Short answers in the same terms as the page. Anything specific to your systems is agreed by enquiry.

Public vs private cloud: what is the difference?: Public cloud shares a provider’s infrastructure between many customers under the provider’s controls. A private environment is dedicated to one organisation, with placement, access and administration decided and recorded by that organisation.
What does private cloud architecture involve?: Deciding what needs to be private, placing compute and data together deliberately, separating ordinary use from administration, and planning updates, backups and rebuilds so the environment stays maintainable.
Is a private cloud more secure?: It is more controllable. Security comes from the boundary being drawn and enforced: an isolated service that routes every request through an uncontrolled dependency has not solved the problem. We write the boundary down before building it.

A CLEARER NEXT STEP

Plan a private environment

From an unanswered question
to an engineered possibility.

Plan a private environment