A private IP address is used for internal communication within a private network, such as a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) in cloud computing environments. It is not accessible from the internet and is used for secure, internal traffic between resources within the same network. For example, if you have multiple servers within a VPC, they can communicate with each other using their private IP addresses.
On the other hand, a public IP address is accessible from the internet and is used for external communication. It allows your cloud server to be reachable from the internet, enabling access to web applications, services, or data hosted on that server. For instance, when you type a website's URL into your browser, your device sends a request to the web server's public IP address.
In cloud computing, such as with Tencent Cloud, you can allocate a public IP to your cloud server to make it accessible from the internet while keeping internal traffic secure and private using private IPs within your VPC.