With the many benefits of cloud services, all businesses are moving to the cloud. Whether you are a construction company, IT, bank, or in the health sector, you will benefit by moving your business to the cloud. Some of the top benefits of moving your business to the cloud include reduced cost of running your business, flexibility, data security, improved collaboration, and scalability, among others. Therefore, if you are yet to move your business to the cloud, it is high time you choose a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), says dade2.net.
When choosing your CSP, you will find lots of companies offering cloud hosting services. This makes choosing the best company a daunting task. This article will list six factors to consider when choosing a CSP.
1. Security
Before choosing your CSP, it is essential that you know your business security needs and compare them against what any prospective cloud hosting provider is offering. Find out the security measures the different providers have put in place before buying the service. Also, find out what security features are free, and those that are paid for. Also, what security features are available from third-party providers. Once you have all these security details, you will be better positioned to know which CSP to work with.
2. Technologies and Support
Before settling for any cloud hosting provider:
- Ensure that their standards, architectures, and service are aligned with your workload, technical environment, and management preferences.
- Assess how much adjustment you need before your business can migrate to the cloud.
- Most importantly, look for a company that offers an onboarding support to make the process easy for your business.
3. Compliance
When looking fora CSP, you must choose a provider to help your business meet industry-specific compliance standards. Whether your business operates under SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR (more info), or other frameworks, be sure your hosting service provider will help your business be compliant. Most importantly, know your responsibility and what the provider needs to do to get you started.
4. Manageability
You must know what different cloud service providers require you to manage. Each provider supports different orchestration tools and allows integration with other services. Therefore, if you have particular services vital to your business, ensure that the provider you choose offers a seamless way to integrate with them. Most importantly, consider how much your team will spend managing various aspects of the cloud infrastructure before signing on the dotted line.
5. Reliability
With cloud hosting services, downtimes are inevitable, but the difference from one provider to another is responsiveness. What your provider does after downtime is what matters. The best provider will offer solutions when there is downtime, and notify clients what to expect and their timeline to restore the service. Therefore, it is crucial to research and find out if the CSP you’re about to hire is reliable and responsive before hiring them.
6. Cost of Service
While cost should not be the determining factor, it is crucial you look for affordable cloud hosting services. Why pay more if you can get quality and reliable services at a lower cost? Do not always go for the brand, but instead consider other factors such as reliability, security, good support, compliance, and affordability.