Private cloud is often presented as being the solution for all your computing issues. It promises benefits such as cost savings, energy savings, rapid deployment and customer empowerment. But what exactly is private cloud?

The private cloud is the opposite to the public cloud. A public cloud is shared by multiple businesses and organizations, whereas a private cloud is entirely dedicated to the needs of a single company. Private clouds are often preferred by larger companies with more complicated IT needs and requirements, as they can offer all of the benefits of the public cloud (a scalable, reliable and efficient infrastructure) but in a more secure setting. Although private clouds traditionally ran on-premise, organizations are now building private clouds on rented, vendor-owned data centers located off-premise.

Private cloud is actually less expensive for many businesses, as shown by a recent study from 451 Research. Experts suggest that due in large part to hidden charges, including network bandwidth, businesses are often not aware of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a public cloud until the bill arrives, and the research shows that 41 percent of IT decision-makers find their private cloud to be less expensive than a comparable public cloud. Further, 24 percent said they pay a premium of 10 percent or less for their private cloud, which is well worth it for organizations benefiting from the other advantages of the private cloud.

Ultimately, security and compliance experts tend to recommend private cloud because it can provide security advantages over a public cloud. While any cloud environment requires robust anti-virus and firewall protection, a private cloud runs on certain physical machines, which makes its physical security easier to ensure.

If your business has very specific security regulations that it needs to follow, a private cloud can be configured directly to your needs. The hardware of a private cloud is entirely up to your company, so there are no complicating factors brought into by other organizations using the same servers, as could be the case with the public cloud.