What is a public cloud?

October 03, 2020

1 min read

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Public clouds are the most common type of cloud computing deployment. The cloud resources (like servers and storage) are owned and operated by a third-party cloud service provider and delivered over the internet. With a public cloud, all hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure are owned and managed by the cloud provider. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud.

In a public cloud, you share the same hardware, storage, and network devices with other organizations or cloud “tenants,” and you access services and manage your account using a web browser. Public cloud deployments are frequently used to provide web-based email, online office applications, storage, and testing and development environments.

Advantages of public clouds:

Lower costs: no need to purchase hardware or software, and you pay only for the service you use.
No maintenance: your service provider provides the maintenance.
Near-unlimited scalability: on-demand resources are available to meet your business needs.
High reliability: a vast network of servers ensures against failure.