Public, private, and hybrid clouds

Basically, there are three types of clouds in cloud computing, they are public, private, and hybrid clouds.

In a public cloud, third-party service providers make resources and services available to their customers via the internet. The customers' applications and data are deployed on infrastructure owned and secured by the service provider.

A private cloud provides many of the same benefits of a public cloud but the services and data are managed by the organization or a third-party, solely for the customer's organization. Usually, private cloud places increase administrative overheads on the customer but give greater control over the infrastructure and reduce security-related concerns. The infrastructure may be located on or off the organization's premises.

A hybrid cloud is a combination of both a private and a public cloud. The decision on what runs on the private versus the public cloud is usually based on several factors, including business criticality of the application, sensitivity of the data, industry certifications and standards required, regulations, and many more. But in some cases, spikes in demand for resources are also handled in the public cloud.