More and more businesses are moving to the cloud. Statistics show that roughly half of all small businesses and over 90% of all enterprise businesses use cloud computing. While all forms of cloud computing involve the use of remote, on-demand hardware resources, there are different cloud computing models. There’s the public cloud computing model and the private cloud computing model. What’s the difference between these two cloud computing models?

What Is Public Cloud Computing?

Public cloud computing involves the use of a publically accessible cloud computing service offered by a third-party could provider. Public cloud computing offers resources, which are available to access over the internet. You can use a public cloud computing service to store data, for instance. Rather than storing data locally via on-premise servers, you can store it remotely. Public cloud computing services offer resources like disk space, computing power, etc.

What Is Private Cloud Computing?

Private cloud computing involves the use of a private cloud computing service. Private cloud computing services are offered by third-party providers — just like public cloud computing services — and they are set up by businesses themselves. If you want to use a private cloud computing service for your business, for example, you can either partner with a third-party provider or set it up yourself. Private cloud computing services consist of the same resources, but they are only available to a single business or organization.

Differences Between Public and Private Cloud Computing

Two of the most common cloud computing models are public and private. Public cloud computing is characterized by the use of remote, on-demand resources that are publically accessible. Anyone who subscribes to the provider’s public cloud computing service can use those resources. Private cloud computing is pretty much the same, except the resources are private.

Most private cloud computing services are only available to a single business or organization. Other businesses and organizations can’t use your business’s private cloud computing service.

Because they are limited to a single business or organization, private cloud computing services are more secure. You don’t have to worry about unauthorized users accessing your business’s data With a private cloud computing service, your business will have complete and exclusive access to the service’s resources.

Private cloud computing is also more customization. You can configure it to meet the needs of your business. Maybe you need more of a particular resource type, or perhaps you want to run a particular piece of software on a remove server. Regardless, you’ll have the freedom to customize the private cloud computing service as you see fit. Public cloud computing services, in comparison, offer little or no customization.