Cloud Technology – Deployment Models

Cloud technology is a multifaceted version of utility computing where computing comes as a service and not a product – very similar to paying our electricity bills, telephone bills, cable bills etc where the cloud users are billed on a pay-per-use scheme by the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) against the consumption of their services hosted on cloud.

There are five types of Cloud Deployment Models prominently in use across the globe. They are namely:- 
Public Cloud: Resources like infrastructure (ex: web server), software (ex: web apps) and platforms (ex: shared OS) etc are hosted across geographical boundaries in a virtual environment which can be accessed by anyone interested to move to the cloud. Different CSPs have created their own clouds and are offering to the Public (ex: interested cloud users – individual/organizational) clients for their use against minimal payment terms based on usage statistics. The data security level may not be very high, highly dependent on the CSP’s terms. 
Private Cloud: When the resources are shared within a private network creating a private cloud space within a single organization, it’s called a Private Cloud. The data security standards are defined as per the organization’s security policy. 
Community Cloud: Multiple Private Clouds from similar communities share resources among each other forming a Community Cloud. 
Controlled Cloud: Same as Public Clouds, except there exist mutually agreed SLAs and legal contracts between the users and CSP. Thus, higher data privacy and security are assured in Controlled Clouds than on Public ones. 
Hybrid Cloud: It’s a deployment combo of any of the above four types.

In my next blogs, I will share details of the different Cloud Service Models and Cloud hosting costing trends.