Cloud hosting has now become a well-documented and increasingly used technology throughout the IT world even though it is still seen as an emerging technology. It works by delivering data, applications, disc space, memory and a lot more by streaming it over the internet. As a result of the technology being so new, it is still leaving many IT companies confused about it. People are unsure when they should migrate and they are also unsure about how to migrate and what type of cloud service to choose.

Essentially there are three different types of cloud hosting and these are private cloud which works for internal services, external public services and hybrid which is a combination of both.

Private Cloud

The private cloud is also called the internal cloud and this is because it enables the sharing of IT resources and applications through the intranet, this is then accesses by users and staff who work for the company. This then becomes a private cluster and it means that different users are able to share different data and applications, all of this is usually positioned behind a secure firewall. In this kind of setup there will be no resources shared with any agencies beyond the four walls of the organisation which means that multi tenancy does not happen. The private cloud is tailored to the needs of the organisation as it uses connections that are private and more importantly continuously running as they come with an almost 100% uptime. There is also dedicated disc space which helps to increase the security.

Public Clouds

The public cloud is also referred to an external cloud and this is primarily because it provides IT services through the internet and it has very little control over the technology used for the infrastructure. It makes things a lot simpler and decreases the time it takes to test and implement new projects because many of the resources can be shared with other companies that also have similar projects. This option is appealing to companies because it is more affordable but it also comes with a number of benefits including the sharing of IT resources.

Hybrid Clouds

The Hybrid cloud is a mixture of the Public Cloud and Private Cloud and this brings with it the best parts of both services. This technology offers more customisation and the rules and policies implemented are also tailored to the security needs and infrastructure. Choosing to use the hybrid cloud means that all activities are allocated depending on the internal and external requirements from its users.

Cloud hosting is also known as Internal which is private, external which is public and hybrid but it can also be isolated depending on the service type and platform from which it is based. This can be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas).

Saas provides access to a product remotely or an e-commerce service via the internet. Platform-as-a-Service is aimed at developers who do not want to have any input to the underlying infrastructure and only require the sharing of applications via the cloud. Infrastructure-as-a-Service offers as much involvement as possible with regards to the infrastructure of the server for the users.

There are other forms of cloud based hosting and these are known as community clouds, cloud streams, federated clouds and mobile clouds. All of these are implemented through virtualisation and they centralise applications and infrastructure which is stored on separate servers and managed remotely.

Any of the above mentioned options are usable but how well it works for you is dependant on selecting the right host and how well it suits the needs of your business.