Enterprises Don’t Have To Choose Between The Public And Private Cloud

Much of the thinking around data storage and processing construes enterprise data as an undifferentiated mass. The reality is very different. Data is differentiated across multiple axes: from low to high value, from business critical to potentially useful, from highly sensitive to publishable, and from time sensitive to archival, among many other potential lines of variation. No one-size-fits-all solution can be sufficient to accommodate the matrix of potential species of data and their meaning to a particular enterprise. The debate surrounding public and private cloud is largely spurious, or, at least, the focus is misaligned. It’s not a matter of which is best, but which is best for a specific subset of a company’s requirements given their operational needs and the diversity of data involved. Vendors that are unprepared to efficiently store and process data across the spectrum are artificially constraining the potential benefits they could bring to clients. On the other hand, vendors like Cartika can offer cloud platforms closely tailored to the needs of clients. They are able to help businesses leverage the benefits of public cloud infrastructure, with its flexible provisioning, scalable deployment, and on-demand pricing. The public cloud brings operational efficiencies that businesses can’t afford to ignore and, if properly managed, is extremely secure. But the public cloud doesn’t suit every business in every case. Data that needs to be kept highly secure may be more suited to infrastructure that is entirely under the control of one organization. Rather than giving up on the benefits of virtualization and cloud technology to return to legacy infrastructure and software, these use cases are perfect for a dedicated private cloud deployment, which provides many of the benefits of the public cloud while maintaining a “clean” environment for the company’s data. As I already said, businesses shouldn’t have to choose between the public and private cloud, which is why Cartika doesn’t force clients to make that choice. They are able to deploy both public and private cloud environments on Cartika’s platform, and, because each is under the control of Cartika’s CommandLayer Control Center, integration between the environments is tight. The debate over whether the cloud is the next big thing is long done and its benefits are unarguable. Now enterprises are asking: “How can the cloud be shaped to provide solutions that match our operational needs.” To answer that question, Cartika combines a flexible platform with public and private environments, expert support that can guide companies in molding the cloud to their needs, and a powerful and flexible control interface that lets clients build the cloud they need. Image: Flickr/iTux