Your IT infrastructure in a virtual private cloud - these are the advantages

In this blog post, you will learn what a Virtual Private Cloud(VPC) is, how it works, what benefits come with a VPC and what SMEs and start-ups should look for when choosing a VPC provider.

Which IT environment suits my company and supports us in the best possible way in achieving our company goals? Companies of all sizes should ask themselves this question regularly. Thanks to technological innovations and advances, new delivery models and established IaaS providers, the opportunities for building and expanding IT infrastructures are more numerous than ever before. When choosing the right IT environment, company size, mission, industry, the scope of the online project and portfolio, systems already in use, and the way you work are all important factors. While stability, reliability and security of the IT infrastructure are usually must-have criteria, the requirements for scalability, flexibility and cost efficiency often differ massively.

What is a Virtual Private Cloud?

To explain what a VPC is, we first need to briefly look again at the definitions of public and private cloud: The public cloud is a multi-tenant platform where computing resources can be rented on demand from an external provider. These resources are available globally over the internet and allow customers to instantly provision and scale services without capital investment in dedicated infrastructure located off-premises. A private cloud is a personal pool of resources for a single client. These resources run in a dedicated infrastructure (on-site, using dedicated servers or in an external partner's data centre). At Xelon, the Virtual Datacenter with public cloud resources functions as a self-contained system like a Virtual Private Cloud.

A VPC is basically a private cloud that is located within a public cloud. It is a configurable on-demand Pool of shared computer resources that are available to a public cloud environment and by isolating between the different users are marked. A virtual private cloud enables the Managing private cloud computing in a public cloud environment. Likewise like a virtual private network (VPN), virtual private clouds provide secure data transmission between a company and public cloud providers via the Internet. Thereby it is ensured that the data of each customer is transferred and stored Cloud provider network remain isolated from the other customers. This guarantees the same data protection standards as private clouds

VPC is most commonly used as a service in the context of the cloud infrastructure. Some of the best-known providers of virtual private clouds include Amazon Web Services (AWS) with the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, IBM with the IBM Cloud, and Google with the Google Cloud Platform. The offerings of these hyperscalers are primarily aimed at large companies and offer attractive prices, but usually little flexibility.

How does a Virtual Private Cloud work?

Virtual Private Clouds and Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are closely connected. Here you can find out what role VPNs play in the operation of a VPC.

The Isolation between a VPC user and all other users of the same cloud (why other VPC users as well as users of the public cloud) usually by assigning a private IP subnet and a virtual communication construct. In a VPC, this process, which enables isolation within the cloud, is accompanied by a VPN function. This is in turn assigned to a VPC user and is secured by authentication and encryption to enable remote access by an organization to its VPC resources.

With a VPN will connect a private network such as a corporate network via a public infrastructure - in most cases via the Internet - for made accessible to the users. In this way, data can be accessed efficiently via shared used or public networks are exchanged as if they were directly connected to the private network.

Commercial virtual private networks secure traffic in an encrypted tunnel and then route that traffic through a server at a remote location of the user's choice. This masks the user's location, IP address and online activity. The security mechanisms of a VPN, such as encryption of data, guarantee security and data protection.

A virtual private cloud has these advantages:

Virtual Private Clouds combine the best of both worlds: the security and compliance standards of a private cloud and the convenience of public clouds. Here is a list of the key benefits of a VPC:

• Increased security: With a VPC you can secure your virtual network environment. This includes IP addresses, subnets and network gateways. For example, it is possible to isolate a database on a private subnet that is not connected to the Internet.
• Privacy: Your Virtual Private Cloud is separated from other clouds at the network level, so you can control your data just as you would when using private cloud servers. This also prevents corporate data from being mixed with data from other cloud customers. The VPC model is therefore ideal for companies for which security, data protection and control play a central role. In the financial sector or healthcare, for example, companies depend on customer data being protected in the best possible way.
• Higher performance: Virtual Private Clouds allow you to prioritize network traffic of selected applications to optimize performance and avoid congestion and bottlenecks.
• Scalability: The demands on the IT environment can change quickly, especially in growing start-ups and SMEs, depending on the order situation or team development. One of the biggest advantages of cloud-based servers is their high scalability: If a small business grows to become a medium-sized company, new servers and software do not have to be purchased at every milestone. With cloud servers, more computing power can be activated within minutes.
• Flexibility: With a VPC, access to the rented cloud resources is possible from anywhere in the world, the only requirement is an Internet connection. The possibility of remote work and flexible working hours can be a great advantage when recruiting new employees - especially from digital natives.
• Time saving: In contrast to the operation of physical servers, no separate hardware needs to be set up when purchasing cloud services. With a VPC, the IT environment can be extended, expanded or adapted without great financial and time expenditure. An external IaaS partner takes care of changing your IT infrastructure in the cloud to meet new requirements within minutes. This reduces waiting times and allows your team to get back to its main activities as soon as possible.
• Good price/performance ratio: In addition to scalability, flexibility and efficiency gains, cost savings are often the main reason why smaller and growing businesses choose cloud migration, as cloud storage space is usually billed monthly and therefore no large upfront payments need to be made. Instead of hoarding capacity in your own server room and having little room for expansion, you can get tailored services from an external provider like Xelon. Cloud hosting is the ideal solution for cost-conscious SMBs who want to reduce IT spending and increase efficiency at the same time. With cloud-based servers, SMBs can get high quality services at a reasonable price.

This is what you should consider when choosing a VPC provider

As above mentioned, fall with a Virtual Private Cloud - in contrast to operating a own server - hardware revisions and the permanent securing of the ideal conditions for server rooms. The external partner ensures that your team always works with a stable and secure cloud infrastructure can. In the search for a suitable IaaS provider who can offer VPC in the portfolio many companies come across well-known names like AWS, Google or IBM. The VPC offers of these hyperscalers are, however, primarily based on international large companies and offer little to SMEs or start-ups flexibility.

Localities Providers like Xelon can respond to the individual needs of companies of any size and jointly develop a tailor-made VPC concept for Linux or Design Windows. You should also make sure that the external partner is personally available at all times and can react quickly in emergencies.

The company location also plays an important role in the choice of a cloud provider. Hyperscalers are often based in the USA, where access to data by means of the American Patriot Act is practiced by US companies without judicial control. This is not permitted in Switzerland. Local providers comply with Swiss data protection laws and can therefore guarantee the highest data security standards. Our infrastructure is located in ISO-certified data centers in Switzerland and all customer data is subject to Swiss data protection laws.

Conclusion

A Virtual Private Cloud is a private cloud that resides within a virtual public cloud. It runs in a virtually isolated environment on public infrastructure. Our Virtual Datacenter (VDC) works with public cloud resources as a self-contained system like a Virtual Private Cloud. Users gain complete control over the virtual network and business-critical workloads and data are isolated from other users of the cloud infrastructure. Virtual Private Clouds - and our Virtual Datacenter - thus combine the best of both worlds: on the one hand, the security and compliance standards of a private cloud and, on the other hand, the advantages of public clouds such as easy scalability, high flexibility and cost efficiency. The VPC model is therefore ideal for companies for whom security, data protection and control play a central role and who at the same time only want to pay for resources that are actually used.

Virtual Private Clouds are located in a secure infrastructure outside of your own business premises in dedicated data centers of external IaaS providers. Local providers based in Switzerland can design suitable VPC concepts for SMEs and start-ups and guarantee the highest data protection standards.