The Pros And Cons Of A VPC [Virtual Private Cloud]

Presented as a more affordable alternative to private clouds and more secure than public clouds, “Virtual Private Clouds” (VPC) can be quickly integrated into an existing corporate network. They are particularly suitable for organizations and businesses dealing with sensitive data such as banks, health, human resources, etc.

The cloud computing ecosystem is constantly pushing its limits. Like some video games that offer huge “open worlds,” the cloud landscape is extraordinarily diverse. And everyone can find their account.

Moreover, these years we have avoided saying “the cloud”. There are as many clouds and innovative solutions offered by providers as there are use cases. Take the case of cloud models.

The best known is the public cloud, whose IT infrastructure is shared by several customers. In contrast, there is the private cloud (internal or external to the company’s site) with an IT infrastructure dedicated to a single customer. Between the two, there is the hybrid cloud: the two clouds – private and public – coexist with a sharing of tasks.

Not easy to make the right choice. However, a Forrester Research study published in 2017 indicates that most organizations trying to create their private cloud have been disappointed: the high cost of moving from public cloud to private cloud was hardly justified.

In general, these three models have advantages and disadvantages. And if, finally, the best of the worlds of the cloud was represented by a fourth model? The VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is less known and yet very attractive. It is a hybrid device: a private cloud is hosted inside a public cloud.

Companies are increasingly interested in it to have the butter and the butter money: they take advantage of an affordable global public infrastructure while retaining some of the characteristics they appreciate in having their infrastructure.

Like all solutions, the VPC has advantages but also limits.

Benefits

Essentially, a VPC can look and act like an extension of your on-premises data centre. Although it’s not a “true” private cloud, it’s close enough for many organizations.

The second argument in its favor: is the confidentiality of data, thanks to the tightness offered by this virtual cloud. Your data processing and storage methods are not mixed with other public cloud tenants. This partitioning represents a non-negligible security guarantee.

Opting for a VPC allows a business to get a unique private IP subnet that can operate as if the components and software program were in-house. She has complete control over the range of IP addresses used by her VPC, the creation and management of subnets, which can be either public (accessible via the Internet) or private (accessible via a VPN), and the configuration of routing tables and gateways.

In any case, a Virtual Private Cloud remains behind the company’s firewall.

Virtual Private Clouds are relatively inexpensive. They offer much more raw power than dedicated servers of the same class, despite being virtual.

A VPS server can be created much faster than a dedicated server, which must be assembled and installed. Your Virtual Dedicated Server can be ready in hours, with all necessary software installed on-site.

Finally, a single VPC can span multiple regions without communicating over the public Internet. All teams in a company can use this VPC to isolate their workloads in projects and enjoy separate billing and quotas.

Limits

You need to consider the ingress and egress costs of data going through the VPC and the cost of a private connection per hour. Another pitfall is latency. Different criteria come into play, but it can be a problem for teams using a personal link to use a VPC over the open Internet.

These few disadvantages do not seem to discourage companies. According to a recent study by Markets and Markets, the global virtual private cloud market is expected to grow.

According to an analyst firm, “security, the development of automation and the need to modernize IT is the primary growth factor for this type of offer. However, compatibility issues with existing systems may hamper the market growth.