Every day, more and more businesses migrate their data to the cloud. Cloud spending is expected to grow 18.4% in 2021. With a variety of providers available, choosing a cloud provider can feel a bit daunting. Here are 3 items to consider when choosing a cloud provider.
Overall Service
One of the more obvious elements to consider when choosing your cloud provider is how much storage is available. You want to make sure whatever vendor you choose has the capacity to store your organization’s data. Nothing would be more frustrating than having to constantly change your cloud capacity because you run out of space. In addition to this, they should have a plan in place that notifies you if you start to get close to your storage limit, so you can decide whether to scale your storage up.
Secondly, make sure you know the vendor’s average uptime. Just as with other technology, downtime for the cloud can be an issue. Your service level agreement with your cloud vendor should detail uptime. Finally, you should make sure that your cloud provider is monitoring and reporting on your cloud, similarly to other technology solutions, so that you can be optimally served.
Backup
Data backup is extremely important in general, and cloud services are no exception. When choosing a cloud provider, you’ll want to understand where all your information is stored, and how frequently it is being backed up. For some organizations, there may not be a need for constant backup, but for others, it may make sense to do so. This is something to discuss and agree upon with your cloud provider. You should also understand their overall data backup plan, such as if the vendor has multiple sites where the data is backed up.
Security
Although your internal team will need to be involved in securing your cloud, your cloud vendor should have a cybersecurity strategy to keep your information safe. Ask the potential vendor if they have a cybersecurity framework, and make sure you understand their access and identity management procedures that will be used for your data. This involves verifying each user who accesses your cloud information, with items such as multi-factor authentication. You will want to find a vendor that has a comprehensive plan to protect your information.
Choosing a cloud provider doesn’t have to be a confusing task if you understand what items you are looking for. Although this list is not exhaustive, these three things will give you a good idea when vetting cloud vendors for your organization.
