Private and Public Cloud are having a pint
Imagine Private Cloud and Public Cloud met up in a pub and had this conversation…
[Private Cloud]: Is it true you don’t know where your data is? I’ve got two datacentres with actual addresses where you can come and see my flashing lights.
[Public Cloud]: Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve got what’s called a DATA RESIDENCY boundary. My customers have the choice of where their data sites and the flexibility to design and maintain a data residency boundary for compliance reasons. Right now you can choose from 57 regions available in 140 countries, and each region has a minimum of two datacentre locations, most have four. Flashing lights, you say? Should we call Doc and see if Marty can take us back to 1985?
[Private Cloud]: OK, but you know they say you’re not secure?
[Public Cloud]: Let me tell you a bit about my ‘SHARED SECURITY MODEL’. Security in the Cloud is the customer’s responsibility – i.e. configuring their security policies appropriate for their business. I’ve got a load of tools available, like AI-based threat protection, Cloud App Security features, Information Rights Protection and DLP, Identity management and conditional access. It’s up to the customer how they design, deploy, and manage these – choosing a partner with cloud experience and skills are critical in my world. Security of the Cloud, i.e. infrastructure, SaaS services and availability – that’s all my baby. I’m heavily into AI to deal with the 7 trillion cyberthreats I’m seeing daily, and I spend over $1 BILLION ANNUALLY on cybersecurity. How about you?
[Private Cloud]: But people can access data anywhere and even download it onto non-company devices – my customers think that’s a problem.
[Public Cloud]: Yes, my default settings are aimed at providing easy anywhere access and promoting collaboration. – However, these settings can be controlled by the individual customer. You want to prevent downloading of attachments in Outlook Web? – no problem. You want to restrict that type access to known locations like your office? – OK. You want to disable that type of access entirely? – sure.
And, then the heat gets turned up … Public Cloud shooting from the hip…
[Private Cloud]: I’ve got this cool DR plan. It’s 107 pages long, and I test it every year to make sure I know what doesn’t work. You can see it if you want?
[Public Cloud]: Data resiliency is baked into what I do and right at the core of my design. It’s not a bolt-on service or something we take a look at once a year, breathe a sigh of relief, and shelve for the next 12 months. Email data is automatically replicated to four geographically separate locations in the same region. (Do you remember those data residency boundaries?). This protects them from software, hardware, and datacentre failures.
[Private Cloud]: Seriously? Four?
[Public Cloud]: Yes! Three of these copies are highly available ‘live’ data. The fourth copy is a lagged database copy that’s a recovery mechanism in the event of a catastrophic systems-wide logical corruption of data. I also do some cool stuff with messages in the queue or in transit so we have multiple copies of those before they even get to the database. All of this stuff happens seamlessly and automatically so my customers can carry on working – no maintenance windows, no emergency patching outages, and guaranteed by my credit backed SLA.
Private Cloud tries to find an angle…
[Private Cloud]: I give my customers an external 3rd party email continuity service, but you don’t do that do you?
[Public Cloud]: Should I repeat the four locations design a little slower for you? Good job in adding complexity! But I guess you need to do that if you only have a primary/failover design.
Private Cloud ignores the obvious sarcasm and pushes on…
[Public Cloud]: Is it true you dropped a load of cash on those flashing lights of yours? You are really pushing to sweat the asset. That’s a difficult cycle to get out of. How you doing with that?
[Private Cloud]: I lock my customers in with long contracts.
[Public Cloud]: Really? I’m just month to month. I don’t think you should need to lock people in if you’re awesome. Tell me about new features and updates, and what does your roadmap look like? I’ve got some amazing stuff coming – currently rolling out 140 updates and I’ve got another 222 in development.
[Private]: Yeah, well nice chatting, I’ve got to run … [exit stage left]
[Public Cloud]: Um, OK! I guess I’ll get that beer for you then. Things must be a little tight in flashing light world …
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