To kick off the first #cloudchat of 2018, participants contributed to a lively discussion about all things private cloud! From weighing cost considerations, to the expertise needed to maintain, our experts unpacked the situations when a private cloud solution is the best option for a company. Read what folks had to share and stay tuned during the month of January for more private cloud topics.
#cloudchat participants included VMWare’s Sunny Dua, Red Hat’s Thomas Cameron and Stuart Ainsworth of Jack Henry & Associates. We also had OCSL CMO Jane Ayres, Accenture Federal’s Dominic Delmolino and Fortium Partners’ Brian Greenburg. Rounding out the group were Rackers Eglė Sigler, Eric Johnson, Kevin Jackson and our Chief Evangelist John Engates who answered the following questions on private cloud:
- Q1: What kind of workloads and use cases are particularly well-suited to private cloud? #cloudchat
- Q2: What are the most important types of expertise required to successfully implement private cloud? How can you best access them? #cloudchat
- Q3: What are the biggest cost considerations around private cloud? When might it be the most cost-effective option? #cloudchat
- Q4: What do you see as the biggest advantages and tradeoffs of private cloud compared to public cloud? #cloudchat
- Q5: What are the risks associated with private cloud? How can they be minimized? #cloudchat
- Q6: How is security and compliance for private cloud different compared to public cloud or bare metal servers? #cloudchat
Miss a #cloudchat? We have all the #cloudchat recaps here on the blog!
Right out of the gate we asked cloud chatters to weigh in on the workloads and use cases best suited for private cloud and heard two major themes: large, complex workloads and heavily regulated workloads.
A1: any consistently large workload is great for #privatecloud. I expect to see a lot more NFV and Edge clouds on #OpenStack deployments in the near future. #cloudchat
— Eglė Sigler (@eglute) January 11, 2018
#cloudchat A1: obvious answer for us is heavily regulated workloads (fin trans) that need to scale. We can share resources with other BU's, and adjust as needed.
— Stuart R Ainsworth (@codegumbo) January 11, 2018
With that, what expertise is required to successfully implement and manage private cloud? Participants agreed strong, knowledgeable people are a must, coupled with sound understanding of cloud technology. John Engates raised the point that if expertise is a concern, managed service providers like Rackspace can help.
A2 I feel like I answer this to everything but it’s people skills.. You have to understand the needs foremost #cloudchat
— Larry (@LarryLarmeu) January 11, 2018
It is important to understand how #cloud works, what it is best for (and not) and then map to what aspects are most relevant. This is true for private cloud as much as cloud in general.#cloudchat #CIO https://t.co/Wx8pos2Sng by #tcrawford
— Jane Ayres (@jane_ayres12) January 11, 2018
A2: It's very helpful to have strong expertise (and some backup) on the private cloud platform you've chosen to run. Otherwise you're setting yourself up for failure. Service providers (like @rackspace) can serve as primary or backup for the expertise gap. #cloudchat
— John Engates (@jengates) January 11, 2018
In terms of cost, Sunny Dua said private cloud is always going to be cheaper in the long run, adding that it’s “cost effective for long term commitment, businesses with predictive demand, and Medium to Large scale organizations.”
A3: Private cloud is always cheaper in long run. #CFO's know that money saving aspect of the #public #clouds is a myth. It is cost effective for long term committment, businesses with predictive demand, and Medium to Large scale organizations… #cloudchat
— Sunny Dua (@Sunny_Dua) January 11, 2018
Cloud chatter Nicole Scalese warned of sticker shock related to the cost of deployment and training.
A3 – the cost of deployment and training is going to be high – this doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile investment, but certainly can carry sticker shock. #cloudchat
— Nicole Scalese (@nicolescalese) January 11, 2018
When discussing the advantages of private cloud versus public, cloud chatters were unanimous in their response: control. Kevin Jackson used the analogy of a family, saying with private cloud there’s “No noisy neighbor (just your own family making noises!)”
A4 Advantages: Control. No noisy neighbor (just your own family making noises!); your own hardware choices; control over architecture and integration to existing architecture #cloudchat
— Kevin Jackson (@itarchitectkev) January 11, 2018
#cloudchat A4 Advantages: more control, better understanding of infrastructure, more dedicated/customized solution for your customers, potentially less complexity (only offer the capabilities you know you need).
— Thomas Cameron (@thomasdcameron) January 11, 2018
#cloudchat A4: private vs public:
Pro: control
Con: impleementation and maintenance costs— Stuart R Ainsworth (@codegumbo) January 11, 2018
We asked participants about risks associated with private cloud implementation and Dominic Delmolino advised the transition process may be more difficult than expected.
A5 transitioning your current O&M processes and tooling to a cloud-like infrastructure may be more difficult than you think #cloudchat
— Dominic Delmolino (@ddelmoli) January 11, 2018
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we asked the experts how security and compliance differ on private cloud. Brian Greenburg argued that security on private cloud is mostly the same, while Thomas Cameron noted the highly variable workloads require security to be revisited with every project.
A6 #CloudChat There are mostly the same security & compliance concerns except public cloud will require additional certification from third party providers, audit, etc. and private cloud will require physical security issues addressed including all the services that come with it.
— Brian Greenberg (@bjgreenberg) January 11, 2018
#cloudchat A6 Since workloads are highly variable, #security has to be revisited for every project. That's why I always bang the "bring in security on day 0" drum.
— Thomas Cameron (@thomasdcameron) January 11, 2018
Enjoyed our very first #cloudchat of 2018 on private cloud? Read more of what the experts had to say in our Twitter Moment and stay tuned for more chats on private cloud during January.
