Choosing a sincere and efficient Cloud Service Provider (or CSP) which would be the RIGHT FIT for your business requirements is many times a hard nut to crack. This is because no two CSP can offer you the same services at the same pricing plans though the basic benefits won’t vary. If you are a NEWBIE in the business market, then you will look for some basic cloud plan and begin your journey after creating, configuring, and then, customizing your business applications virtually via an active internet connection. But as soon as the complexity in your business process increases, you would surely give a thought to upgrade your existing cloud plan.
Wait!! Don’t do hurry while making a selection or changing your existing CSP if the need is urgent. Here, you must look for many other things like Security, Service-Level Agreements, Level of Customer Support Offered, and much more for determining which CSP would be the best while responding to your technical, business, or operational requirements in terms of flexibility, scalability, and continuity from a business perspective. Eager to know what should I be looking for in the Cloud Service Provider!! Take a look at the below things to make your decision easier in this case.
1. A Cloud Service Provider Will Take Care of Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory Compliance, in terms of cloud computing, means your business processes running on cloud-based systems are compliant with the standards which your customers require. However, such standards won’t VIOLATE various other laws and regulations such as HIPPA, PCCI, and GDPR bound to data collection as well as data storage in an intimidating way. If your cloud service provider is taking care of the regulatory requirements of many of your existing businesses, then you better need not WORRY ABOUT STAYING up-to-date with the brand-new rules and regulations constantly affecting your business data. Curious to know what those conditions are related to regulatory compliance!! They are a) Setting out a STEP-BY-STEP process through which you are deploying well cloud technologies in compliance with the updated regulatory requirements like maintaining interdisciplinary principles while business processes are active, advertising and marketing regulations. b) Encouraging customer’s choice by making your services available both online and offline with honest communication channels c) A standardized and auditable compliance framework to promote trust and swifter adoption of your cloud services across maximum sectors of the economy.
2. A Cloud Service Provider is Adaptable with Your Infrastructure Requirements
Infrastructure requirements can be defined as your list of various types of business hardware and software to enable cloud computing benefits in real-time. While accessing your list of H/W (Hardware) and S/W (Software), the cloud service provider you have selected or will select some must be adaptable with the varying behavior of components affecting your curated list. Such components are virtualization, computing power, and availability of cloud resources sensed with strengthened virtualization techniques. Conceptualizing what the benefit of infrastructure would be in the long run!! This will offer agility to your businesses so that they can be operated with not much need to GIGANTIC CAPITAL EXPENSE on maintenance, or repairing of H/W & S/W. As a result, your business processes can scalably acquire a strong grip on everyday load demands since such loads will automatically be balanced without any HUMAN INTERVENTION and also, at lesser costs. So, you should be spending your valuable time and money in finding and then, hiring an adaptable cloud-service provider who understands your infrastructure requirements and offers solutions corresponding to that without compromising on business continuity.
3. A Cloud Service Provider will favor SLAs
SLAs i.e. Service-Level Agreements of Cloud Computing sincerely establishes a relationship between a user (which is you) and a cloud service provider (which you have chosen or will choose). Indeed, such relationships are recognized as internal-level, customer-level, and multilevel service-level agreements and differentiate themselves well on the grounds of responsiveness, speed, volume and quality of work, and at last, efficiency. If your selected cloud service provider is clear with agreeing upon any of the types of SLAs you require as per your business standards, then you must not be waiting longer to establish such contractual relationships with the provider. In the long run, picking up a Cloud Service Provider who favorably shakes hands as per the SLA standards won’t go waste because now, you are assured about what particularly the cloud service provider is managing and implementing actually? Now, both of you are connected on the grounds of trust and will communicate if something goes wrong as per the agreement’s legal conditions.
4. A Cloud Service Provider Should Offer Different Types of Cloud Services
Types of Cloud Services are three: a) IaaS b) PaaS c) SaaS. In an abbreviated manner, the IaaS is Infrastructure-As-A-Service, PaaS is directed towards Platform-As-A-Service, and SaaS is Software-As-A-Service. But before you see the magic of any of those in real-time, you better analyze well your business requirements and then, consult a cloud-service provider to perceive solutions related to deployment, maintenance of applications, and the architecture supporting them. Otherwise, you may fall into the trap of selection of a service doing totally opposite of WHAT YOUR BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS ARE? So, you should be doing R & D at your own level of your business requirements. Then, you must consult your selected or any other cloud hosting provider handling brilliantly all your queries regarding the hardware, and other platforms driving the infrastructure of your business processes. More than expected, such a decision will help you in migrating from any of your traditional data-centric approaches of running businesses to the ones relying upon systematically documenting all the merits like SCALABILITY, RELIABILITY, SPEED, or ACCURACY bound to the powerful and dynamic cloud services.
5. A Cloud Service Provider Must Provide Recommended Security Measures
Recommended Security measures let you handle all your concerns of business data and networking principles establishing shareable and resourceful connections among different users. Just like N/W i.e. Network Security, Cloud Security measures ensure that your data is SAFE AND can traverse across different platforms resilient with AUTHENTICATION and ease-of-availability. Thoughtfully analyzing if your cloud service provider is critical with his/her act of supplying such recommended security measures!! To verify this, you must analyze or evaluate once the security procedures and policies of the cloud service provider have already been chosen or will be chosen by you in the future. If required, you must not be taking a step back in reviewing the provider’s governance and compliance certifications which would be an EVIDENCE OF PROPORTIONATE INTERESTS acquired by your cloud service provider. So, choosing a service provider recommending security measures in accordance with the essential cloud policies and procedures will help you manage challenges related to vulnerabilities in security filled with misconfigurations and sensitive DATA EXPOSURES.
6. A Cloud Service Provider Won’t Refuse to Customer Support
Customer Support is another parameter that would require your CAREFUL consideration. The reason is obvious – such support will help you get what your business demands simply and quickly. Also, a CSP i.e. Cloud Service Provider should be flexible with his/her terms of providing support round-the-clock (HOLIDAYS ARE INCLUDED) via live chat, phone calls, emails, and other communication channels. This will help you a lot in increasing the response time and average resolution time of your businesses as your customers will get the right answers for all their queries bound to the constraints of time and access. Typically, the support will ensure that the quality of service, as well as the remedies doing wonders at times of performance failures, will scale your business processes in this mature market environment. So, ask your Cloud Service Provider upfront about the level and form of customer support you will be able to access after accepting his/her services at some monthly charges.
7. A Cloud Service Provider is Presentable with Flexibility in the Pricing Plans
Pricing Structure for Cloud Computing Services varies greatly. Here, you should understand that any of the pricing plans you are choosing is matching with your business model, network, hardware requirements, and the number of users accommodated by the network. Also, you should ask your chosen cloud service provider about the sticker price of your PRICING PLAN and other costs associated with consumption of value-added services for a month, an hour, half-yearly, or year-wise. If needed, you can raise a query to your service provider for the pricing models categorized on the basis of usage. A few of them from that categorization trending in the market are PAY-PER-USE (Pay only for WHAT you are using exclusive of UPFRONT COSTS), HYBRID (offers combined benefits of PAY-PER-USE and SUBSCRIPTION-BASED), & SUBSCRIPTION-BASED ( lets you RESERVE cloud resources you may avail in the future for a specific period). Hence, you must not feel hesitant while asking about the available pricing plans, upfront costs associated, and ability to add services as per your business requirements from your CSP so that you can flexibly present maximum benefits of your business model which will benefit your customers located across any of the parts of GLOBE.
