We’ve all been there, asking the same question over and over. Can just one other word make so much difference?

The lines between the private cloud and the virtual private cloud are blurring more than ever. Still, they differ in terms of provider, architecture, and resource delivery.

Luckily you can decide between both based on these distinctions.
Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

Private clouds: what to expect

Private clouds stand by their name as a computing service offered through the internet, exclusively provided to one organization, and dedicated to fully-protect it from any harm.

Unlike a public cloud’s often misassumptions of its expectation vs. reality. A private cloud is direct to the point, only available to a set-of selected users (single-tenant environment).

The internal/corporate/private cloud is easy to scale up. Therefore, it can provide:

• Scalability: providing extra services without extra configuration to be required by the IT team
• Self-service: granting users the ability to access the private cloud without IT complexities.

You better know that your own IT department will be held accountable for any failures and met with many complexities. So, you should invest smartly into the management, staff, and other maintenance expenses.

Benefits of private cloud

With optimal security and customization control, the advantages of a private cloud may include:

Full software/hardware choices control: choose what you prefer, not what a cloud provider offers.

Full conformity and flexibility: customers aren’t forced to obey a cloud service provider’s administration

Don’t forget to keep in mind that one of the most distinguished traits private clouds enjoy is the high privacy/security level, protecting you against any potential attacks or from sensitive data leaks to third-party providers.

Alongside elasticity and additional control, using the dedicated resources hosted on-premises.

Cloud services for private clouds

Two cloud services models are applicable for a private cloud, which are the IaaS and the PaaS.

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): where a third-party provider develops platforms and exposes them to customers over the internet. As if you’re buying the tools you need to build your house by yourself.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): where a third-party provider hosts virtualized resources online to customers. As if you’re renting land to build your house on, but still need your own building equipment to do so.

Private cloud and the next level

Capable of running virtual machines, private clouds are a solid choice to maximize hardware usage.

Still, private cloud users will need more public cloud features and will often mix both the public cloud and private cloud to develop a hybrid cloud that can have the necessary elements to meet all their needs.

Deploying a hybrid cloud is essential for ultra-efficiency purposes, and will benefit you greatly by freeing up space using cloud bursting.

Virtual private cloud (VPC)

A virtual private cloud is a private cloud within a public cloud, reinforced with security/isolation aspects using public cloud resources.

Same as the private cloud, you’re only allowed to access it if you’re the one who made it or a part of the people invited inside (multitenancy).

The VPC comes backed with scalability, agility, exquisite performance, and easy hybrid cloud deployment using an application programming interface (API). Thus, Making-your business inevitably one step closer to perfection.

What isolates a VPC

With firewall functions that provide filtering capabilities, here’re the technologies behind the VPC isolation:

Subnets: You reserve IP network addresses so you can come back later to, which are ultimately only yours to command, away from the evil public internet world.

VLAN: VPCs can be isolated through some devices connected to a local area network, which means having a connection that is there without the use of the internet.

VPN: mostly used to access region-restricted websites or to shield your browsing activity. VPNs isolate a VPC using encrypted traffic. A virtual private network (VPN) passes through a publicly shared Internet infrastructure that’s not visible to anyone but you.

VPC top benefits

Most viable and valuable VPC scenarios come into play when you need the following:

Guaranteed customer satisfaction: a VPC helps you build brand trust/customer loyalty, and therefore gain more traffic and achieve other strategy goals, with an uptime ratio up to 99.99%.

Exceptional security: a VPC offers you a complete data separation from your provider’s other clients unless you give them access, protecting all your valuable information from potential leaks to the wrong hands.

Customize all you want: with complete control over your network, VPCs allow you to connect to your enterprise at any time you wish to, add segmentations based on your mere desire, and become more agile than ever.

Challenges VPC users to face

Like all the beautiful things in the world, they pack a punch when they come with a bit of excitement. Rare but possible at the same-time VPC challenges might include:

1-Complexity issues when trying to manage and configure the VPN of the VPC you are using. Therefore, you should have a pretty solid IT team for viable incidents.

2-VPCs, no matter how great they may seem, are still hosted outside the enterprise’s data center. This exposes some strict compliance businesses to data and application limitations.

Virtual private cloud vs. private cloud: you don’t have to choose

Although they are often used by financial institutions, government agencies, or other organizations with critical operations seeking more and improved control over their environment.

The utter truth is that no one specific type of cloud computing can be considered the right choice for everyone and will always depend on each entity’s needs.

As technology progresses faster than ever, several other cloud computing models and services have evolved to meet the fast-changing individualized needs of organizations.

There will be ups and downs for every cloud deployment model, but the three main service models for deploying a cloud service are a private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud.

Strategize, organize, and study both your needs and your competitors as hard. That way, it’s easier to grasp the ultimate end goal and move swiftly towards it using the perfect deployment method, mainly directed and guided by your unique business needs.

Hybrid cloud, cloud hybrid, or multi-cloud. No matter which definition of hybrid cloud you use, the great benefits are the same!

With superior security, automated data redundancy, high availability, and disaster recovery. Hybrid cloud is the ultimate choice for small and big businesses alike.

Imagine a hybrid train feeding on solar and electric power, 2 distinguished technologies functioning differently.

When both are combined appropriately, it results in a more powerful train than a solar or electric-only train, enhancing advantages and overcoming disadvantages of each power.

Hybrid clouds maintain the same approach, unifying public and private cloud services to create a single and cost-optimal IT infrastructure.

Hybrid cloud: what connects the separate clouds

Public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises infrastructure can connect through:

• Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
• Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
• Wide Area Networks (WANs)
• Local area networks (LANs)

Hybrid cloud: types of environments

• Public cloud: shared by multiple organizations, it runs by an external vendor that may include servers in one or more data centers

• Private cloud: wholly dedicated to one company, all the files are not shared, maintained, and secured by the organizations-themselves

• On-premises (legacy): where deployments don’t use cloud technology. Instead, organizations use the traditional practice of purchasing software licenses.

Any combination of the above cloud types can be considered “hybrid cloud”

Hybrid cloud: How does it work?

Hybrid clouds focus on transforming portions of a company’s on-premises data center into private cloud infrastructure, then connecting that infrastructure to public cloud environments hosted off-premises by a public cloud provider.

This happens using unified management tools or advanced enterprise middleware to combine cloud resources across the environments.

Hybrid cloud: the advantages within

Offering many competitive edges, the benefits of a hybrid cloud include:

• Improved productivity: agility is on top when it comes to hybrid clouds, helping you expand effortlessly and deploy to all clouds.

• Exceptional security: keep sensitive data on-premises in a secure private cloud while running the rest of your applications using a public cloud.

• Potential acceleration: avoid service interruptions due to cloud crashes by relying on the other cloud. Also, gain faster integration and combination with partners or third parties to deliver new products and services.

• Cost control: run every application as efficiently as possible by adding cloud resources -only when- needed to accommodate the peak periods.

Read VPC vs private cloud: differences and definations

Hybrid cloud: the evil drawbacks

Because nothing’s perfect without the imperfections, some of the top hybrid cloud disadvantages are:

• Complexity all over: setting up a hybrid cloud takes more steps than deploying a single cloud, as hybrid clouds consist of at least 1 private cloud and 1 public cloud, or 2 and more clouds from each.

• Tough to secure: requiring multiple security products at times for the company’s public cloud, as it’s only the private cloud that runs behind its firewall.

• Barbed mixture: not all private and public clouds are fully compatible, resulting in slow responses for hybrid cloud applications. Additionally, the cost may significantly increase in data misplacement, inevitably calling for a unique set of outstanding technical skills.

Hybrid cloud: use cases and scenarios

• Disaster recovery: by backing up data in the cloud carefully to avoid bandwidth consumption.

• Cloud provider adventure: where a group of skilled people explore the cloud tools and learn how to deal with them before adopting a public cloud approach.

• Future flexibility: hybrid clouds match your exact data requirements to the public/private cloud resources that are guaranteed to handle them the best.

Hybrid cloud: best of both worlds

The presence of multiple environments can be a powerful defense against security risks and maintain the tools freely for complete scaling, saving, and maximum efficiency.

If the road is clear, then why limit your options? Go on and consider all the way hybrid cloud now! Get all the agility you need for the next level, and grasp the best of both worlds.

Next: Everything as a service: Beginner's guide to XaaS

Ever got confused about the difference between a VPC and a VPN, too? You're not alone. VPCs and VPNs are often puzzled as they:

• Share key aspects
• Can be associated together
• Stand for almost the same acronyms

Let's decipher each letter, benefit, and dig deeper into whether it's worth all the confusion, in this short yet comprehensive answer.

The (V) for virtual, refers to a virtualized network relying on virtualized hardware.

The (P) for private, means that access to a resource is limited for certain users.

VPC under spotlight

With the (C) standing for cloud, VPCs grant users the ability to turn on/off their servers within an hourly pricing model instead of a monthly one.

They’re also not limited to a single server, and can manage great numbers of virtual machines. Plus, Elasticity is on top for VPCs, giving you automatic virtual expansion for sudden traffic increases.

Besides being much cheaper than a VPS that charges monthly, read (VPC) fully explained in less than 500 words. or virtual private cloud vs private cloud for a full virtual private cloud guide.

VPC additional perks

If what we mentioned still doesn’t satisfy your taste, here’s more!

• Effortless hardware boosts: simply upgrade hardware for all your VPC customers at once since they all access resources from the same hardware.

• Hybrid cloud harmony: enjoy a combination of a private cloud and a public cloud service operated by a third party, and gain access to more data deployment options.

VPN under spotlight

VPNs mainly facilitate the public-resources reach to users in private.

They also can:

• Encapsulate your data in an encrypted tunnel to secure your internet connection
• Give you the advantage of Internet privacy
• Offer you IP leak protection

Personally, I came into direct contact with VPNs and they benefited me in different ways, still are! Those benefits depend on each individualized scenario.

For instance, in my case, I used it to access blocked websites, since I come from a place where a lot of good websites are just, blocked.

Read SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS: Beginner's Guide to your Best Model

Key differences between a VPC and a VPN

Even though they share the acronyms of the “V” for Virilization and the “P” for private, they do still offer different needs.

VPC, as an elastic cloud service, focuses more on hosting/providing full control over a company-websites, with automatic scale for traffic requirements and unbounded hardware limitations.

VPN, on the other hand, is a cost-effective technology for companies and individuals alike.

From protecting normal conversations and VoIP calls up to logins and bank info, a VPN can be hosted on a VPC to breakthrough any geographical limitations.

Get a deeper look at our detailed article for the great capabilities of a VPN, or another one here for how to benefit your business with the VPN protocol types.