Thursday, March 28, 2024

Blog | 5 tips in choosing a cloud service provider

By Wesley Lim

Wesley-Lim

Cloud adoption in Asia is growing at a steady rate, as more and more businesses are realizing its potential. Many are now turning to the cloud as a more cost-effective alternative for their businesses, while those not yet ready to set up their own cloud architecture are looking at third-party cloud providers for their services.

When choosing a cloud service provider, it is important for IT managers and business leaders to take the time and do their research, understand the risks, and be fully aware of the capabilities of the provider so they can make an informed decision before embarking on a cloud deployment.

In choosing a cloud service provider, here are five things to look for:

1. Robust IT infrastructure

If your organization does decide to utilize an external cloud provider to embark on a cloud deployment, bear in mind that control of the infrastructure that is protecting your data largely shifts to your service provider.

In turn, the risk of an outage also shifts from your data center to the provider?s. The damages brought by an outage can be devastating, as evidenced by a 2013 Emerson study. It is critical, then, to review a provider?s data center availability record and IT infrastructure before choosing its services.

Make sure that the provider has a robust IT infrastructure that can handle new stress points brought by a cloud deployment. A robust IT infrastructure has fault-tolerant systems in place, including power, thermal management, and infrastructure management solutions, to sustain the highest possible levels of availability and service and, while reducing operating costs and management complexity.

2. Seamless integration of hardware and software

Having a robust IT infrastructure is only the first step in determining if a cloud service provider can be trusted with your sensitive data. For an optimal cloud computing environment, providers should be able to bridge the gap between the physical layer of the data center infrastructure and the virtualized systems.

Thus, make sure that the provider adopts an infrastructure management strategy that effectively aggregates and correlates real-time data across a data center?s once heterogeneous IT and facility equipment. This will also allow organizations to maximize performance, reliability, and efficiency of the cloud.

Visibility into both hardware and software is important, and a provider with data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions in place has a critical advantage as this provides real-time information into the infrastructure so you are assured that both your hardware and software is optimized and protected at all times.

3. Security

Security remains a major concern for organizations when it comes to cloud deployment. This was highlighted in 2013 when it was revealed that the NSA was able to access and retrieve private data from cloud servers.

In fact, a recent study by NTT Communications revealed that 62 percent of IT decision-makers surveyed cited cyber-surveillance as a reason for not moving to cloud.

If you are putting all sensitive information online, security should be your foremost consideration. It is important to know where your data will be stored; how it will be backed up; and how your data will be protected. Physical and virtual security is important, so examine your prospective provider?s security and contingency plans before making a decision.

4. Scalability and availability

A key advantage of cloud computing is scalability ? the ability to upgrade or downgrade your IT requirements depending on your needs ? and your cloud provider of choice should be able to scale with you.

This means its IT infrastructure as well as its people and management processes is able to adjust so your business can grow. Hand-in-hand with scalability is availability. Maintaining high availability is essential to maintain operational integrity.

When evaluating third party cloud providers, the vendor?s data center power infrastructure and availability strategy should be examined. Look for a cloud provider that has established redundancy within its UPS architecture. Intelligent UPS systems designed for rapid, seamless deployment in critical IT environments can help achieve superior performance and availability.

Data center monitoring and management solutions can help mitigate risks of downtime and provide unique benefits to external cloud service providers.

5. IT value over cost

Many organizations prioritize pricing when it comes to choosing a cloud provider. Companies tend to look for providers with the most cost effective solution. But you should not compromise IT value over cost. In the end, it is more important to look for a provider that gives the best value for your money. Do your research; request for a client base. Make sure that the provider has a solid reputation with a proven experience and track record.

Ultimately, it is important to do your research before choosing a cloud service provider to ensure optimal integrity, accountability, and strong service-level agreements.

The author is the director for DCIM Business at Emerson Network Power in Asia

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