If you’re considering transitioning your network to the cloud, you may be concerned about shared resources or security. While security breaches on the public cloud are rare, a virtual private cloud (VPC) can offer an additional layer of security to provide you with the peace of mind knowing exactly how your resources are being used.
However, to successfully leverage a virtual private cloud solution, you first have to understand how one functions. If a more isolated cloud environment sounds like a cloud service you’re interested in, let’s explore how a virtual private cloud could streamline your options.
How a VPC Works
A VPC solution operates as an isolated part of a cloud service provider’s public cloud infrastructure. A VPC model is designed to ensure that your data remains isolated from everyone else’s data for mission-critical cloud resources while still taking advantage of the benefits of the public cloud environment. This extra level of security is achieved by isolating your data both in transit and as it’s used and stored on the cloud provider’s servers. Common security measures include:
- Data encryption
- Tunneling
- Private IP addressing
- Virtual local area networks (VLAN)
As a VPC user, you can explicitly define and manage network components such as IP addresses, subnets, network gateways, and access control policies. If you’re looking for a cloud solution that offers some of the hands-on administrative features of an in-house server, a VPC may provide the ideal solution.
Benefits of a VPC
As we’ve already discussed, the most substantial advantage of a VPC is that you can achieve more hands-on administrative control over resource management while still experiencing the benefits of an off-site, public cloud environment. You will still have access to the same scalable, on-demand, and pay-as-you-go cloud resources with an additional layer of security.
A VPC also provides a platform similar to a private in-house cloud with the capital expenses, overhead costs, and complications associated with deploying an on-site cloud server infrastructure.
Challenges of a VPC
When deploying a VPC solution, you may experience challenges in terms of configuring, managing, and monitoring your VPN. However, this problem can generally be resolved by hiring a cloud computing consultant to ensure that your cloud environment is optimized for your needs.
Because your virtual private cloud operates at an off-site data center, you may encounter conflicts with your industry’s compliance regulations. If you work in a heavily regulated industry like healthcare or finance, you may not be able to run specific applications or store sensitive data in a VPC environment. To mitigate the risk of this happening, you should ensure that your cloud provider is able to host all of the resources, applications, and data you plan on moving to the cloud before committing to a VPC environment.
If you want to learn more about what a VPC solution may look like for your business, [contact the experts at ANC Group today], and we’ll help you explore your options.
