Cloud deployment models - Azure Tutorial

Let's talk about Cloud Deployment Models. When we think about Cloud Deployment Models, we're also describing three different types of Clouds, public Clouds, private Clouds, and hybrid Cloud. We're going to start off talking about the public Cloud, which we frequently refer to as a multi-tenant environment, a tenant meaning someone who's using that Cloud. So this would refer to something like Azure.com. If you go to portal.azure.com to get to the Azure portal, that's the public Cloud. When you do that, you're using data centers in an Azure region that house physical computers that are used by all of the other people that are using that public Cloud. So that's why we call it a multi-tenant environment. lots of different people all using the same physical hardware and infrastructure. Now the public cloud has a lot of advantages, the first being fast deployment. The cloud provider has a lot of benefit in making it easy for you to adopt the public cloud. And so they provide guidance and tools that make it very easy to deploy things to the public cloud. Also, most of your costs are going to be consumption based. So you're gonna pay for what you consume in that cloud versus having to pay for a lot of infrastructure and those types of things yourself. It's also great for lift and shift scenarios. This is where you might have a deployment that exists in your on-premises data center and you want to replicate that deployment in the cloud. You can just simply create the same environment in the public cloud and then lift and shift that deployment into the cloud using the deployment tools and guidance that are available to you. Now in the public cloud, the cloud provider owns it all. They own everything that you are using in that cloud. All of the infrastructure is owned by them. The data center is owned by them. Everything is owned by the cloud provider. Now there's another cloud deployment model called the private cloud. and we frequently refer to the private cloud as a single tenant environment, and that's because in a private cloud, it is owned by one company or one entity. There aren't all these other people utilizing that same infrastructure. It's owned by you. Now, this obviously gives you privacy. You know, if you're a company that operates maybe a healthcare business and you have very sensitive data that you're dealing with. Having a private cloud might be very attractive to you because it gives you that level of privacy. Also, you own the infrastructure. That means you own all the computers and everything else. That means you have to buy all the computers and everything for that private cloud, and that means it's expensive. Now, you could host a private cloud in your own data center, Or you could pay someone else to host that cloud for you as a hosting provider, but that infrastructure is still owned by you usually. If it's not owned by you, you have to pay the hosting provider kind of a rental fee for that infrastructure. And so no matter whether you own it or they own it, there's still a lot of costs associated with that. Now, the third cloud deployment model or type of cloud is the hybrid cloud. And you might've guessed it, this is just a mixture of the two. It's not a cloud that runs on batteries. It's a mixture of public and private. Now it does come with the downfall of having complex networking scenarios. Obviously, if you have a hybrid cloud, that means you've got this combination of public cloud and private cloud, and you're gonna wanna connect those two things together. and the Cloud does give you the capability of easily configuring that connectivity. The problem comes into play when things don't work the way they should and you have to troubleshoot and a lot of times, you're troubleshooting networking going out over the Internet. So that gets pretty complicated, can be complicated. Then also you have some additional expense here because just the fact that you're in Hybrid Cloud means at least some of your stuff is sitting in a private Cloud, which means you've got to have staff to maintain that and you've got to purchase the infrastructure. Actually, if you think about the second bullet here, complex networking, you might have to add capability to your company that you don't currently have in the way of networking specialists who can troubleshoot those different networking scenarios. Now, you can think of the Hybrid Cloud in a couple of different ways. One is you could think of it as a private cloud, the way I explained private cloud connecting to a public cloud. But also, if we think about maybe one server that's in your on-premises data center, maybe you've got an old legacy database server that runs on-premises and you want to keep that, but you want to connect it to your systems that are running in the public cloud, That's also a hybrid scenario. So that's why hybrid is very popular. So now let's talk about when each of these different Cloud models might be used. Starting with public Cloud again, it's a great choice for new deployments. The reason for that is because it's very easy to deploy. A lot of times with new deployments, you're deploying and testing different configurations and that kind of thing. Very easy to do in the public Cloud, very cost-efficient. It's also good for frequently changing workloads because since you don't own the infrastructure it makes it very easy for you to reconfigure things if things change frequently. And also if predictable costs are important to you, the public cloud is a great option because it's consumption based. You don't have a lot of upfront costs. Now the private cloud is important for those people who need control and privacy. A lot of times this has to do with the type of business you operate and how sensitive your data is. Also, for people who have very strict regulatory compliance. That could be a healthcare industry or maybe a legal firm or someone else that has very sensitive data that is controlled by regulations either in their region or in their industry. And finally, if you have customized configurations that are difficult to implement in a public cloud, that flexibility you have in a private cloud might make those things something that you can easily accomplish. Now, the hybrid cloud is great when you just want to keep some data private. It may be in an on-premises data center or something like that, but you still want to take advantage of the ease of use of the public cloud. Also great for legacy systems like companies that have invested in equipment over a long time and maybe they have systems running on-premises that aren't available in the public cloud because they're older legacy systems. Using a hybrid cloud scenario is a good choice there. And then it gives you the full flexibility. It gives you the ability to take advantage of the public cloud and the private cloud both. Now thinking a little bit more about the hybrid cloud, the hybrid cloud is the most popular type of cloud deployment and it's very popular with enterprises. So let's talk about why enterprises mix these cloud models. Why do enterprises choose hybrid? Well the first is they can take advantage of the fact that in the public cloud infrastructure is upgraded by the Cloud provider and they don't have to pay for the cost of upgrading those things. So that's a big benefit to an enterprise that might be using a very large number of computers. So it does not require them to take on the expense of purchasing new computers as technology moves forward. It also gives them the ability to very easily implement regulation requirements, because they can keep some of their stuff private in a private Cloud or in their on-premises data center, while they can still take advantage of the public Cloud. It's also great for experimentation because it allows them to easily use the public Cloud and be cost-efficient while still maintaining the control of those things that are operating on-premises. Then finally, those legacy systems or capabilities that I talked about before. This is a really common reason why enterprises mix Cloud models, because they may have invested in systems a long time ago, that don't exist in the public Cloud, and they don't want to have to incur the expense of moving all of that data into a more modern system, because their legacy system is working fine for them. By using hybrid, they can take advantage of those legacy systems on-premises while still taking advantage of the public cloud.