What tasks are suitable for public cloud services, and what tasks should be avoided?
In today's digital age, every Enterprise IT department is considering the benefits of public cloud services. However, the specific applications of cloud technology can vary greatly, depending on a multitude of factors.
The Advantages of Public Cloud
One of the key advantages of public cloud is its ability to offer pay-per-usage models, reducing the risk of capital expense budget waste due to idle hardware. This makes it an ideal choice for workloads with variable demand, such as marketing websites.
Moreover, public cloud providers offer automated auto-scaling approaches, which can handle the variable demand of a marketing website effectively. Development and test resources in Fortune 500 environments also benefit from the pay-as-you-go model offered by public cloud.
SaaS providers like Salesforce.com and Workday add their own data security specialties for CRM and HR markets, making public cloud a viable option for these workloads. Dev/test workloads and customer analytics can also take advantage of public cloud, especially when dealing with sanitized data.
The Role of Private Infrastructure
While public cloud offers numerous benefits, certain financial operations like batch jobs with sensitive data are better suited for internal data centers. This is due to the need for more precise cost amortization and better data security.
The decision to use public cloud or internal data centers for workloads depends greatly on the company's needs and culture, as well as the sensitivity of the data involved. Some companies are not comfortable having certain types of financial, customer, or employee data off premises.
In situations prioritizing cost control and avoiding rising cloud spending, running a workload on a virtual machine in public cloud 24/7 may become less expensive to run on internal hardware. Similarly, enterprise applications and HPC workloads operated in private data centers with custom integrations and operational automation may be more cost-effective in the long run.
A Balanced Approach: Bimodal IT
A hybrid approach, often called bimodal IT, balances cloud benefits and private infrastructure control. This approach is particularly useful for conservative Fortune 500 IT departments closely scrutinizing costs and compliance.
Studies show that enterprises are migrating over 40,000 VMs off VMware into modernized private clouds to reduce licensing costs and preserve existing workflows, while also expanding public cloud use for AI readiness and elastic compute.
Making the Right Decision
To make an informed decision about which workloads should run in the public cloud or internal data centers, a structure for the conversation is suggested. A two-dimensional model can be created by plotting workload demand and data sensitivity to determine which workloads should run where.
| Workload Characteristic | Best Fit | Reason | |---------------------------------------|---------------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | Variable, bursty, or dev/test | Public Cloud | Elasticity, pay-per-use, speed of provisioning | | AI/ML and GPU-intensive | Public Cloud | Access to scalable, amortized GPU resources | | High data sensitivity, compliance | Private Infrastructure | Data control, governance, legacy compliance demands | | Steady, predictable enterprise apps | Private Infrastructure | Cost control, legacy ecosystem continuity | | Mission-critical legacy virtualization | Private Infrastructure | Minimize risk, avoid costly cloud migration overhead | | Cost-sensitive infrastructure | Private Infrastructure | Cloud cost pushback leads to repatriation trends |
This aligns with the practical choices seen in large Fortune 500 enterprises balancing IT modernization and risk management in 2025.
Technologists within Enterprise IT departments are finding the pay-per-usage models of public cloud technology particularly advantageous, as it reduces the risk of capital expense budget waste due to idle hardware, making it ideal for workloads with variable demand such as marketing websites.
Moreover, the automated auto-scaling approaches offered by public cloud providers offer an effective solution for managing the varying demand of marketing websites.
