What To Look For In Cloud Service Providers

By Lucile Jacobs


Cloud computing is an industry that has seen a large number of new entrants joining the market so as to offer this type of services. Clients are therefore faced with various options when it comes to choosing a firm among the existing cloud service providers. Decision making can be simplified if one knows what to look for in a potential partner.

Technical prowess cannot be overlooked. Apart from being able to set up the systems, a technical team must be able to maintain it and ensure that there is no malfunctioning application. Any serious interruption can be detrimental to the operations of a company as employees will not be able to access vital data.

Clients must also consider whether a vendor is trustworthy. Trust is important as there is crucial information being held by the vendor. If a vendor was not trustworthy, he or she could choose to release the information or even sell it to the highest bidder.

Another factor that an individual is required to consider is the availability of a down time guarantee. A down time guarantee stipulates the measures in place to avoid an outage. It also states the amount of time it would take to have the servers back online.

Tools are also a very important part of this process. Businesses will need to manage and analyze their data from time to time. Data analysis tools must therefore be available at all times. A client should not have to install an analysis tool on his end yet he or she has a cloud provider.

Ease of migration is also something that an individual will have to look at. The process of migrating all the company files and applications is one that takes a lot of time to accomplish. To reduce the time spent doing this, a vendor can have applications that will reduce the time spent significantly.

When going though the performance guarantees, an individual must also check the network bandwidth that has been allotted to him. Network bandwidth, disk access speeds and the processor types are all very important. Slow processors will take longer to return requests that may have been submitted by a user on the other end.

Customer support is very critical to a firm. Vendors must ensure that there is a team on standby at any time a problem may arise. Poor customer support may mean that the client will have to go for several hours without access to critical programs.

Applications, data and networks must be secured by the vendor. Servers should also be well secured and manned. Application security is vital as a lapse in security measures may see an increase in the number of hacking attempts which will in the long run make the system more vulnerable.

Before choosing the cloud service providers to work with, one should ensure that the contractors have had a third party performance audit done. This type of audit makes sure that contractors do provide what they have stated. It is also a good way to verify whether the firm has any professional accreditation and certification.




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