Most regional organizations end up with a mix. Email and document collaboration belong in Microsoft 365. A twelve-year-old application the business runs on does not belong anywhere near a redesign. Between those two extremes sits everything that actually needs a decision.
What public cloud does well
Elastic workloads, globally distributed users, modern applications built to be deployed and torn down, and anything where variable capacity is the point. If a workload scales up and down sharply, hyperscale pricing rewards that.
What regional private cloud does well
Steady-state Windows workloads, applications whose vendors will not support public cloud deployment, environments where predictable monthly cost matters more than elasticity, and organizations that want to speak to the person responsible for the infrastructure. Shorter network paths between a regional office and regional infrastructure also help latency-sensitive applications.
- Line-of-business applications tied to a specific Windows Server version
- Hosted desktops for users spread across several buildings
- Disaster recovery targets for on-premises systems
- Workloads with steady, predictable resource use
Costs that get missed
Compare the whole cost, not the compute line. Data egress, Microsoft licensing for hosted workloads, backup, monitoring and the engineering time required to operate the environment all belong in the comparison. A quote that omits who administers the servers is not a quote.
A workable approach
Inventory the workloads, then place each one where its constraints point. Collaboration to Microsoft 365. Elastic or modern applications to public cloud where that fits. Steady Windows workloads, legacy applications and recovery infrastructure to a private cloud you can reach in an afternoon.