Cloud services are used in a wide range of everyday tasks: email, file storage, streaming media, hosting websites and applications, running virtual machines, training artificial intelligence models, and much more. Both public and private clouds play important roles in modern computing.
Public cloud services are delivered over the internet by providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Individuals and organizations rent resources rather than owning the hardware.
Common public cloud uses include:
A private cloud is dedicated to a single organization. It can be hosted in the organization’s own data center or managed by a third party, but the hardware and resources are not shared with the general public.
Private clouds offer more control and can be customized to meet specific security, compliance, and performance requirements. Technologies from vendors such as VMware and Red Hat are often used to build private cloud environments.
Common private cloud use cases include:
Public clouds are typically chosen for flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency. They are ideal when workloads change frequently, when you need to reach users around the world, or when you want to avoid managing physical infrastructure.
Private clouds are preferred when data security, compliance, or strict performance requirements are the top priority. Organizations can customize their environment and maintain full control over how systems are configured and accessed.
Many organizations combine both approaches in a hybrid cloud model, keeping some workloads in a private cloud while using public cloud services for others. This allows them to balance control, cost, and flexibility.
