About this Book
The primary topic of this book is deploying enterprise private clouds using OpenStack. In this context, I discuss private clouds as pools of infrastructure resources, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), that are owned and managed by the organizations they serve. In contrast, public cloud IaaS resources are owned and operated by third-party service providers.
Financially, one can think of private clouds as primarily a capital expense, whereas public clouds are typically operational ones. The distinction is easy to understand, given that in private cloud deployments, organizations typically purchase or lease a fixed infrastructure for the duration of its serviceable life, regardless of actual usage. In public cloud deployments, cost is typically directly related to hourly occupancy (on or off) and communication costs.