Understand private cloud best practices before adoption
The advantages of a private cloud include resource control and performance issue prevention, but admins can't obtain these benefits without first following a few best practices.
Private cloud environments provide IT administrators with capabilities such as improved resource control and flexibility, which go beyond traditional virtual environments. But, before admins consider adopting them, there are several private cloud best practices that admins must learn.
Environments that aren't prepared to handle private cloud architecture will experience issues such as resource contention, and performance will be significantly reduced. To ensure proper implementation, admins should understand private cloud architecture, become familiar with capacity planning tools, be aware of common cloud issues and acquire the appropriate tools to deal with those complications.
Virtual private cloud vs. private cloud
Admins considering private cloud environments might wonder if virtual private clouds and private clouds are one in the same. Though virtual private clouds and private clouds offer similar benefits, some workloads are better suited to one or the other.
Virtual private clouds are generally designed with several layers of isolation in a public cloud, whereas a traditional private cloud is usually an on-premises environment equipped with a self-service portal that the virtual private cloud often lacks.
Which one to choose greatly depends on each organization's needs. For example, the private cloud is ideal for organizations that are looking for more control over IT resources. Organizations that require different levels of isolation, such as the ability to separate web servers from alternative cloud-hosted resources, will benefit more from a virtual private cloud.
Understand private cloud architecture
Understanding private cloud architecture is vital for organizations that want to move away from traditional virtualization.
Understanding private cloud architecture is vital for organizations that want to move away from traditional virtualization. Generally, organizations that adopt a private cloud are doing so to obtain the control and flexibility that private cloud architecture provides. The private cloud enables organizations to design and deploy a cloud environment based on their specific needs. By doing this, admins can enable automation, self-service provisioning, metered usage and rapid scaling.
The architecture of the private cloud is somewhat similar to public cloud in terms of abstracting and pooling resources, but private clouds rely on on-premises virtualization. Otherwise, private cloud workloads wouldn't be able to use resources efficiently, nor would admins be able to isolate workloads.
Private cloud capacity planning tools
Unlike the public cloud, private cloud environments don't contain limitless hardware resources. Private cloud environments are built on premises, which means they are confined by restraints such as cost, floor space and the amount of hardware resources an organization needs. And these limitations make it difficult to scale up private cloud environments.
Because a private cloud has a set pool of resources that is depleted as workloads grow, admins must ensure that their capacity planning is correct to avoid resource contention. To do so, admins have a few tools available that can help to make the task easier, such as specified quotas, long-term resource monitoring and a predictive scheduling engine. These tools give admins the ability to ensure resource elasticity, track private cloud resource usage and enable better resource utilization overall.
How to create a private cloud without issues
To reduce the number of issues admins might come across in their private cloud environments, they must consider security, performance, scalability, staff expertise, visibility and service management. By dealing with these factors prior to creating a private cloud, admins can avoid security risks and resource contention, increase network visibility and reduce costs.
But admins must understand that private clouds generally don't provide the same offerings found in the public cloud. Admins should consider starting off slow with vital services, such as the Helion Cloud Suite software provided by Hewlett Packard Enterprise or the vRealize Suite from VMware, and continue to incorporate other products from there.
Manage performance and issues in the private cloud
Though admins can take certain steps to significantly reduce issues in the private cloud, problems can still affect performance. Finding the root of the problem can be difficult because of the added layers of complexity virtualization adds to the private cloud.
One way admins can resolve issues in the private cloud is to have an arsenal of suitable monitoring and management tools designed specifically for the private cloud at the ready, as opposed to relying on traditional virtualization management tools. Admins can also reduce issues by making sure visibility is a top priority when creating their private clouds. That way, admins can guarantee that, when architectural inconsistencies occur, an alert will guide them to the problem.
