We all know – Transferring one’s business operations from document storage and e-mails – to the cloud can cut down cost, optimize the workflow which wasn’t streamlined, and eradicate in-house IT hardware and personnel.

There is no such industry today that doesn’t realize the importance of the cloud. Be it IT, education, healthcare, retail, or automotive, every industry has a fair idea of how cloud computing service can handle their data management, data transmission, and other significant everyday tasks. Also, it eliminates costly, time-consuming, and complex in-house cloud infrastructure management.

Therefore, choosing the right cloud service provider is not just a choice but a necessity. However, the catch is adhering to the proper criteria and factors while making a choice.

Business’s market position

  • The cloud service provider should have a track record of stability and be in a healthy financial position. The provider should also have sufficient capital to operate successfully over the long term.
  • The company should state its principle somewhere on a document or website. It would help if you liked those principles. Check the provider’s reputation and who the partners are. Also, please read the reviews and talk to the customers to know more about them.
  • The service provider should run based on a formal management structure. There should be established risk management policies and documented procedures to avail any of their services.
  • It should be possible for the provider to validate compliance with all your requirements with the help of a third-party audit.

Security and amp; compliance

  • The user should check which security features go right as per their application and easily integrate with their application.
  • There must be verification on how the cloud service providers encrypt their data to secure them from any attack and comply with the industry standards.
  • It is necessary to ensure that the cloud service provider has definite and proven strategies to take data backup and retention.
  • Enquire whether the cloud solution provider performs the background check of its employees to set aside identity thieves and cybercriminals.
  • Check if the cloud solution provider can comply with the industry-specific government legislation.
  • Physical security should be in place. The data centers should have environmental safeguards to protect data and information from any disruptive activities.
  • Perform research on ‘the company’s track record on security, some popular security incidents, and violations in the past.

Cost and amp; expenses

  • It is not possible to make a general comparison of different providers. Firstly, the user should make a list of services needed, compare all the services together, and then decide.
  • There can be multiple payment styles such as Pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, dedicated resources.
    For example, if someone wants to set up a virtual machine with Pay-as-you-go, one has to pay per second. And, if the VM (virtual machine) is not in use, there are no charges. For the dedicated resources, one needs to spend a predefined amount but can ask for a discount or reservation of resources.

Client support service

  • To choose the best cloud service provider, always be vigilant of during and after-sales service. The vendor should have an efficient support system, i.e., the customer support should be there 24/7/365. Some vendors provide this service for free and other charges varying amount for the service. So, check all of these factors before buying out any service.
  • Also, get a check of the average time taken for response and resolution. More so, find out whether the technical support is provided by the seasoned engineers or support service representatives that read or copy scripts. It is better if you are assigned with seasoned engineers and will save a lot of time resolving issues.

Downtime history

  • When the service is not working or not accessible to the users, it is referred to as downtime. Select a cloud service provider that has the lowest or zero downtime. However, even the largest or most respected cloud vendors’ experience downtime from time to time. So, it is best to go for a vendor with cloud outages as few as possible.
  • It is required for the company to look for an open and transparent approach. Those vendors who openly talk about or publish their downtime history logs on their website are the best. If you opt for any vendor and they do not have the report published openly, then you have to move forward to inquire about the track record.

Conclusion

Businesses must look for long-term partnerships with cloud service providers. Make sure to compare all the parameters for all the cloud service providers before deciding the best fit.

The best fit as a cloud service provider is the one who gives out on the best cost, delivers the features, ensure security, less downtime, and renders resources at an optimized cost to support ongoing operations.

For credible information regarding the technology, please download our latest whitepapers on cloud.