Choose The Best Cloud Services Provider By Considering These Factors

With a lack of a standard framework for assessing Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), and because no two CSPs are identical, choosing the appropriate one for your business is difficult. To assist you in this process, we’ve compiled a list of seven fundamental criteria to use when evaluating a provider that can best match your company’s needs.

1. Cloud Security

You want to know exactly what your security goals are, the various security measures that each vendor offers, and how they guarantee the safety of your applications and data. Also, ensure that you completely understand each party’s responsibilities in specific areas. Security is a major issue in the cloud, so it’s critical to ask detailed and precise questions that address your specific needs, the industry you work in, regulatory standards, and any other factors that matter to you.

2. Cloud Compliance

Make sure you pick a cloud architecture platform that can help you fulfill industry and corporate compliance standards. Whether you’re bound by GDPR, SOC 2, PCI, HIPAA, or any other regulations, be sure you know exactly what it’ll take to satisfy compliance when your apps and data are hosted on a public cloud infrastructure.

3. Architecture

Take into account how the architecture will be integrated into your existing and future workflows. If your company has already invested heavily in Microsoft products, it may be wise to go with Azure since Microsoft provides licenses. If you depend more on Amazon or Google services, look for vendors who can make integration and consolidation easier.

4. Manageability

You’ll also want to figure out what various cloud services will need from you in order to manage them. The solutions all support different orchestration tools and work with a variety of other systems. If you need certain services, be sure the cloud provider you pick offers a simple method to connect them. You’ll also want to figure out how much time and effort it will take for your staff to manage different aspects of the cloud infrastructure.

5. Service Levels

Another factor to consider when choosing a cloud service provider is the company’s level of availability, response time, capacity, and support. Cloud Service Level Agreements (Cloud SLAs) are an important consideration. It’s critical to establish a clear contractual relationship between a cloud service consumer and a CSP and to examine any legal restrictions for data security in the cloud service, particularly given GDPR regulations. You need to be able to trust your cloud provider to do the correct thing, and you’ll need a legal contract that will protect you if something goes wrong.

6. Support

Another factor to think about is assistance. Will you be able to get it right away and simply? Most of the time, only a chat service or call center will assist you. In some situations, you’ll have access to a dedicated specialist, but there’s a chance that there’ll be limits on how long and how much access you’ll have. 

7. Costs

While price should never be the sole or most significant consideration, there’s no doubt that cost will play an important role in determining which cloud service provider you select. It’s worth looking at both the sticker price and any associated expenses (including personnel you may need to hire to manage your instances). Be sure to take these factors into account so you can choose the best cloud provider for your business.