Short answer
Private cloud runs your servers on dedicated infrastructure, public cloud on large shared platforms such as Azure, AWS or Google Cloud. Many organisations use both: steady, regulated systems in private cloud, platform services in public cloud.
In detail
How to choose for each workload:
- Private cloud fits lift-and-shift of existing VMware or Hyper-V servers, regulated or latency-sensitive systems that should stay in South Africa, and budgets that need predictable costs per vCPU, GB of RAM and GB of storage
- Public cloud fits platform-as-a-service, global scalability, development and burst workloads, and Azure Virtual Desktop
- Both, as hybrid: sensitive systems stay private and other workloads use public cloud, connected privately rather than over the public internet
FirstNet delivers either side. FirstNet Private Cloud is a South African-hosted Infrastructure as a Service platform in FirstNet data centres in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, on VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V, with a virtual firewall and immutable Veeam backups as the recommended baseline. Azure comes through FirstNet's Microsoft CSP agreement, with landing zone design and a single rand invoice. Private peering links Private Cloud to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
Keep the trade-offs in mind. Private Cloud is not a public-cloud-style multi-region active/active service: site failover is handled with Geographic DR to a second FirstNet data centre. Public cloud gives you more platform services, but costs need active control. Keeping data in South Africa supports POPIA-aligned designs, though compliance still depends on your configuration and governance.
A discovery workshop maps each workload to the right platform before any migration timeline is set.
Source: FirstNet Private Cloud Hosting & Management service page →