As data breaches and ransomware attacks become more prevalent, it’s become increasingly important for businesses, particularly those housing sensitive data, to consider more secure and customizable storage strategies. About half of all businesses are looking for new security investments in direct response to data breaches, including private cloud storage.
Private cloud storage can help businesses achieve greater security while still harnessing the benefits of cloud computing. We’ll cover what private cloud storage is, what sets it apart from public and hybrid storage, and what organizations should consider before, during, and after implementation.
What is Private Cloud Storage?
Private cloud storage operates like a virtualized data center, offering the benefits of cloud computing while maintaining an isolated, secure environment. Because data resides on your physical servers, you have full control over your security settings.
Private cloud storage enables dynamic resource allocation, allowing for scalability within the limits of your available infrastructure. While it provides on-demand resource allocation, scalability may require planning and investment to extend beyond the initial capacity. This makes it ideal for safeguarding sensitive data, meeting strict regulatory standards, and boosting performance of critical applications.
Businesses often use private cloud storage as part of a larger hybrid cloud strategy, leveraging public cloud storage for less sensitive information. This hybrid approach combines the security and control of private cloud storage with the flexibility and extensive resources of public cloud services.
How Does Private Cloud Storage Differ from Public and Hybrid?
There are differences in location, security, scalability, and cost between private cloud storage, public cloud storage, and hybrid solutions.
With private cloud storage, data is stored in physical servers within a business’ data center or a data center provider. Data is stored with a cloud service provider like Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS) with public cloud. Hybrid cloud storage, like Storage as a Service (STaaS), is the combination of these two options.
Private cloud storage offers the most control over access and security measures, making it ideal for sensitive information. Cloud service providers have influence over security settings on the architectural level for public cloud, but customers are responsible for additional security measures such as encryption in transit and at rest, and configuring access controls.
Both public and private cloud storage can be scalable, but because customers are less confined by physical equipment in public cloud, it’s highly scalable and elastic, allowing for rapid adjustment of resources on-demand. Hybrid cloud provides a middle ground between security and scalability, with control over sensitive data in the private cloud and more flexibility in the public cloud.
More upfront investments are required for private cloud storage, whereas public cloud is generally a pay-as-you-go model for resource usage.
Advantages vs. Disadvantages of Private Cloud Storage
The best way to determine whether this type of cloud storage is suitable for some or all of your workloads is to weigh its advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of Private Cloud Storage
When you need a predictable, customizable cloud storage option with security you can control, private cloud storage is a great solution. Businesses can have peace of mind knowing that they have the ability to configure and manage access and security measures for sensitive data, tailoring the private cloud solution to regulatory requirements or industry standards.
Private cloud storage is also a powerful ally for organizations looking for predictable performance. It can have lower latency and allow for more fine-tuned resource allocation and managing your own private cloud storage can reduce dependence on public cloud storage providers. While you still rely on vendors for the physical storage hardware, software, and possibly support services, you gain more control over your storage environment. This setup minimizes the risk of being tied to a single public cloud provider’s storage solutions and reduces the impact of potential service disruptions.
Disadvantages of Private Cloud Storage
Of course, a higher level of control also comes at a higher price. Private cloud storage comes with more upfront expenses for hardware, software, and IT expertise. Also, greater control over the infrastructure means increased complexity in managing the system. Private cloud environments require specialized knowledge and skills for configuration, maintenance, and security.
Industry Use Cases for Private Cloud Storage
Some industries are more conducive to private cloud storage than others, particularly those that tend to store more sensitive and critical data, such as healthcare, financial services, and government entities. For example, healthcare data breach costs have increased by over 53% since 2020.
Here are some use cases these industries should consider:
Healthcare
Electronic health records (EHR), medical imaging, and collaborative research data can benefit greatly from private cloud storage for different reasons. EHR needs to be stored in a HIPAA-compliant manner and may need to meet other regulatory guidelines, so private cloud storage can help protect this sensitive medical information while ensuring compliance with these regulations.
Medical imaging captures a large volume of data, and private cloud storage can maintain optimal performance for these demanding workloads. This can improve outcomes for critical diagnoses and planning for patient treatment paths.
Sharing medical records may also be necessary in scenarios such as collaborative research projects. In these instances, a controlled private cloud environment is key for keeping healthcare information safe while sharing.
Financial Services
Financial data is just as sensitive as personal health data, and financial services companies are required to store and process it in a way that complies with standards like PCI DSS. Data integrity is also necessary for accurate financial transactions.
Real-time data is critical in all parts of financial services, but particularly with trading applications, where latency is not an option. By enabling real-time data, end users can analyze and execute trades with precision.
Government
Governments store a lot of citizen data that needs to be kept confidential, such as social security numbers and tax information. Government communications can also be classified and highly sensitive. When managing records, data needs to be secure, centralized, and easy to access for authorized parties, making private cloud storage a great option for maximum control.
Private Cloud Storage Implementation Strategies
Once you’ve identified private cloud storage as a solution that fits your needs, it’s time for implementation. Assess your current situation, plan for what’s next, and start the phased approach to implementation, testing, and monitoring at each step in the process.
Assessing Organizational Needs and Readiness
The sensitivity, performance requirements, accessibility needs, and regulatory standards for your data will determine which workloads are best suited for private cloud storage. You’ll also want to have a handle on your IT team’s capabilities with private cloud storage implementation before starting a migration project. You may find that hiring outside experts or new team members is necessary to ensure a new private cloud storage solution is successful.
Planning and Design
Because scalability has some physical limits with private cloud storage, it’s important to determine capacity requirements and potential growth needs in the planning stage. Components you add to your cloud storage plans also need to align with your budget. Explore different options, including managing a private cloud on-premises or working with a data center provider that can house your hardware.
Security Considerations
This phase should encompass security architecture planning and design, including the types of access controls, data encryption, intrusion protection, vulnerability management, and other preventative systems you’ll want to put in place to boost data security. Decide what needs stricter controls and should be kept on private cloud storage, versus workloads that may fare well in public cloud, if you’re planning on hybrid architecture.
Phased Approach to Implementation
Even though moving to a new environment can feel like an overwhelming task, businesses can ease in by using a phased approach. Start small – implement private cloud storage for a small set of data or applications to better understand both the benefits and the necessary steps for moving to this solution. From there, scale as you go.
Monitoring and Analytics
One reason private cloud storage is so beneficial is because it can offer greater performance and customization, but you need to keep monitoring the environment to ensure that performance remains strong. Understand latency, storage utilization, and response times and monitor the private cloud environment for anomalies. Analysis can also include capacity planning and forecasting, as well as security monitoring tools that can flag potential threats and unauthorized access attempts.
Testing and Quality Assurance
Testing doesn’t end after private cloud storage is set up. You need to thoroughly test your solution during and after implementation, making plans for regular disaster recovery testing to ensure your data will be available during a data breach or outage. A good rule of thumb is at least once per year, but you may want to conduct more regular tests for high volumes or highly sensitive data.
Elevating Your Cloud Storage Strategy
It’s never too late to add more to your cloud storage strategy. Private cloud storage can work as a perfect counterpart to public cloud storage or STaaS, providing additional safeguards where it really matters. If you want to learn more about what it takes to add private cloud storage to your overall cloud infrastructure, check out our IT Advisory and Consulting services.
