Article

The hidden gaps in public and private clouds

by Greg Pierce
Chief Cloud Officer, Concerto,

Last brick in a wall

Despite ample marketing hype, there is no panacea when it comes to cloud computing. No silver bullets, no one-size-fits-all. As with any technology, there are merely strengths, weaknesses, and tradeoffs. And all cloud decisions should be grounded in your business priorities and technical requirements in order to meet those priorities.

That said, there are several gaps in public and private cloud models that are often overlooked. Many of them come down to visibility, control, and flexibility. Sometimes those qualities are desired, other times they aren't necessary.

Let's take a look at some of the gaps and tradeoffs as you strive to make your own strategic decisions around cloud-centric IT:

Public cloud: Sacrificing control for simplicity

The public cloud is easy to adopt, offers unlimited scalability, and you only pay for what you use. Continuous updates and innovation deliver the latest tools and capabilities. And public cloud environments are fairly hands off, removing the burden of hardware and software maintenance. 

But there are so many public cloud options, choosing the right provider-let alone the right service, applications, and features-can be overwhelming. Interfacing with a computer screen instead of a human, you receive little to no assistance in making these decisions. And if you have questions or run into problems, you are often left to your own devices. 

There are also misconceptions about the public cloud.

Many people think each provider delivers a single, massive environment. In reality, they typically offer several disparate cloud environments delivered from independent data centers. It's a dirty little ...

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About Greg Pierce

A 20-year technology consultant, Greg Pierce is considered one of the foremost experts on cloud computing trends, systems integration and deployment strategies. Greg develops the strategic direction, vision and product offerings for Concerto and manages sales, service and delivery for all customers.

Greg specializes in helping businesses understand, select and deploy innovative cloud solutions that leverage on-premise, hosted, third party and hybrid models. He was influential in the formation of Concerto Cloud Services and its virtual private cloud infrastructure, and under his leadership, Concerto has become one of the leading cloud services providers in the country, including recognition from Microsoft as the U.S. Independent Software Vendor (ISV) of the Year for Cloud Solutions.

Prior to founding Concerto, Greg held management positions in Tribridge's Cloud, Security and Infrastructure, and Managed Services practices. Before joining Tribridge in 2008, Greg owned and operated two companies that provided a variety of IT managed services and cloud computing solutions for customers throughout the U.S., including platforms for the delivery of ERP and other core business applications via private cloud since 2004. He has also served as a CIO.

Greg is an avid speaker for Fortune 500 enterprises, industry conferences and user groups. He serves on the Advisory Board for the University of South Florida (USF) College of Business, the Advisory Board for USF's Executive MBA Program and on the Executive Advisory Council at the Donald R. Tapia School of Business at Saint Leo University. He is a member of Microsoft's Infrastructure Partners Advisory Council and that organization's Cloud Economics Subcommittee. He holds an MBA from USF and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Eckerd College.

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