Cloud Deployment Models Explained – CompTIA A+ 220-1201 (Objective 4.2)

Public, private, hybrid, and community—do you know the difference between these cloud deployment models? This video covers exactly what you need to know for the CompTIA A+ (220-1201) exam, explaining each model clearly, along with practical examples and scenarios you’ll encounter as an IT professional.

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Video Summary

Public vs. Private Cloud: The public cloud is the most common deployment model, where multiple clients share the same infrastructure provided by a cloud vendor. Meanwhile, the private cloud is used exclusively by one organization, often with ownership of the hardware and data center.

Hybrid Cloud Magic: This model combines both public and private clouds with automation and orchestration, allowing businesses to enjoy the best of both worlds.

Community Cloud for Shared Needs: Governments and organizations with common regulatory requirements sometimes use a community cloud—shared infrastructure designed to meet specific security, compliance, and jurisdictional needs.

Cloud Tenants Explained: In cloud computing, each client has their own tenant—essentially their space in a provider’s cloud. Most companies have just one, but mergers and acquisitions can lead to multiple tenants and the need for tenant migrations.

Government and Regional Cloud Solutions: Tech giants like Microsoft, AWS, and Google offer special cloud services tailored for government compliance (e.g., Microsoft 365 GCC for FedRAMP) or specific regions (e.g., Azure China and AWS China). These services ensure that data remains within the designated country.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

With the types of cloud computing services covered, let’s learn about the different cloud deployment models. There are multiple types of cloud computing models out there. The first one, and probably the most popular, is the public cloud, where you have a cloud vendor that provides cloud services to multiple clients; all the clients securely share the same hardware in the back end. A private cloud, on the other hand, is when the hardware is used exclusively by a single company, which most of the time (but not necessarily always) owns the hardware and data center. This is very close to the traditional data center model that we have always used, but in a private cloud, the organization managing the data center typically builds the different departments for the services that they use.

Next up, we have the hybrid cloud, which is a combination of both a public and a private cloud with automation and orchestration between the two. The last option is the community cloud, which is a shared infrastructure between several organizations with common security, compliance, and jurisdiction concerns. We often see an example of the community cloud when governments from different countries set up a shared services division that hosts all of their IT for that government.

Let’s dive deeper into each one of them. First, most cloud offerings are provided through the public cloud, so unless it’s otherwise specified, the public cloud is the default. Inside the public cloud, each client has its own tenant—that is, the dedicated space in the cloud provider that holds all your services and data. Most organizations have only one tenant, but some might have multiple tenants, especially after a merger or an acquisition, for example. You will often encounter the term “tenant” throughout your career in cloud computing, along with terms like tenant-to-tenant migration, meaning the process of moving from one cloud tenant to another.

Now, for private and hybrid clouds, cloud providers are offering services that allow organizations to manage their private cloud using the same tools, experiences, and app models as those found in on-premises or hybrid data centers. Some industry examples include the Azure Stack and AWS Outposts. Another big advantage is that by using the same technology as in the public cloud but on premises, it becomes much easier to transfer workloads to the public cloud in the future if you decide to do so.

Lastly, probably the most popular type of community cloud is for government use. Microsoft, AWS, and Google all offer specific versions of their tools, such as Microsoft 365 GCC or GCC High, that can handle data subject to specific government regulations or requirements, such as FedRAMP and DoD CGIS, among others. Another example of a community cloud is an offering tailored to a certain country. For example, Microsoft offers Azure China, AWS has AWS China, and there are many more examples like this. These cloud services are deployed in that country and are often separated from the rest of the vendor’s global cloud infrastructure. This setup ensures that the data resides only in that specific country, and while you might see them advertised as sovereign clouds, they are technically community clouds based on our cloud deployment model.