Before diving right into the heart of this piece, let’s do a fast pass over what a “Public Cloud” is and what the benefits are to businesses worldwide. The public cloud is defined as computing services offered by third-party providers over the public Internet, making them available to anyone who wants to use or purchase them. It delivers four primary benefits that can make your operation run smoother and more profitably.

Operational Vs. Capital Investment

Rather than outfitting a private cloud with on-site hardware and software, a public cloud provides it for you at secure locations across the country and around the world. The best part? You only pay for the services you use.

Zero Maintenance

Your public cloud provider maintains all the technology so you don’t have to. This can save on payroll for a full-time tech while also eliminating unforeseen downtime if a problem occurs.

Scalability

On-demand cloud resources are always available as your business requirements evolve. You’ll avoid over-spending or under-equipping yourself as your operation grows, or if you encounter periods of reduced workload.

Reliability

Because public clouds employ a vast network of servers, there’s built-in redundancy to protect you from any critical failures.

If Public Doesn't Cut It...

Almost every business around the world today devotes at least some of their workload to a public cloud platform like Microsoft Azure, Google or Amazon. Others, in order to maintain greater control or speed and security in certain business sectors, opt for a hybrid cloud system instead. A hybrid mixes a company’s private data center with public, cloud-based infrastructure, software and platform services.

If your organization is considering a change to optimize workloads on private, public and hybrid clouds, the first step is to work with a seasoned pro for a comprehensive assessment. As a colocation provider, Marco has a full team of sales engineers who will assess your business, objectives and growth trajectory to develop a cloud system that’s right for you.

Before taking the plunge on an assessment, it’s a great idea to go in with your eyes wide open. And a little background on the three main cloud services will help give you 20/20 vision on what’s available to you out there.