> What's the difference between private cloud and on prem? Cloud and on-premises are not mutually exclusive, as many "bits I push to the cloud" get on-premises

> What's the difference between private cloud and on prem? Cloud and on-premises are not mutually exclusive, as many "bits I push to the cloud" get on-premises of a ponytailed guy named John. We focus on what people mean[^1], not what they say. Some even make a living saying "chemical-free"[^2] or "digital marketing" publicly. > Does it just mean you let everyone spin up VMs etc rather than requiring them to go through IT? This is the on-demand, self-service aspect. What the users get as a result of their demand depends on the need you're trying to fulfill and defines (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.). Do you want them to be able to interact with an application, deploy/run applications, or get a VM? Here's a resource that summarizes it[^3] and the Wikipedia page gives an overview[^4]. [^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWIM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DWIM [^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_free [^3]: https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/cloud-computing/iaas-vs-paas-vs-saas https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/cloud-computing/iaas-vs-paa... [^4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing