Your company needs a new cloud solution. But during your research, you find so much information and so many different possible solutions. So how do you choose? What should your priorities be in selecting the right solution? We will give you a few pointers to make the process of choosing a bit easier.
Security of the cloud solution
Security should be your first priority. When choosing your cloud solution, you should ask yourself a few questions. Does it have independent audits of its security controls? Does it have specific requirements for regulating data? What about the firewalls? What about anti-virus detection, multifactor user authentication, data encryption, and routine security audits? Do not forget to ask who will have access to your data. Does the cloud provider check the background of employees? This way, you can be sure no potential cybercriminals or identity thieves work there.
Image 1 : Selecting the right cloud solution for the oil and gas industry
Backing up
Backing up and recovering data are necessities in every company. But this is costly, brings many potential problems, and can be a huge undertaking. Problems with backing up mostly occur when nobody is watching over the process. This means that there is a great risk that your company could lose data during the backup process. Of course, when you choose your cloud solution, it is imperritive to check whether if the solution includes back ups. This will save your employees time and save your company money
Control over your data
An important point to research is whether and to what extent you will have control over your own data. Are you able to terminate and delete data in the cloud solution? Will your data be used by other parties? Is it possible to restrict data to user roles ? This is important to know because it tells you not only about the security of your own data, but also the flexibility of what you can do with your data. Furthermore, where do they store your data? This is essential due to the different regulations in each country, as well as the threat of natural disasters. Is your data center protected?
Image 2: Searching for the perfect cloud solution for rental companies
Service-level agreements
Service-level agreements (SLAs) make sure the service provider and client are alligned. Ofcourse you do not want to be completely depending on a SLA for your allignment, but it something you can also not do without. It just serves as an extra roadblock. Thus, make sure you get your SLA right. When your cloud provider is the right one they will already have done this before and will provide you what you need.
Transparency of the cloud solution provider
This is one of the most important points to look for when choosing a cloud provider. Transparency says a lot about the provider. Imagine that you just found a cloud solution that checks all your boxes. It has functionality and security, and backups are included. Your data is stored safely in a country with great privacy laws. You have control of your own data. The service-level agreement is exactly what you need.
But if there is no transparency, it can be difficult to find the origin of any problems that arise. This is especially true with an integrated system. You should have visibility in monitoring, operational, performance, change, and problem management. Also, you need to be able to see your capacity license and usage planning. And do not forget about your service-level management and data integration.
Image 3: It can be difficult to find the ideal cloud solution for equipment driven companies.
Scaling up to meet business ends
How flexible is your cloud provider? Can your solution scale up to meet your business ends? What are the limits and why? These are the questions to ask if you want your company to retain the agility and flexibility to grow and shrink as needed
Downtime history of the cloud solution
We can be very brief about this point: of course, you do not want to use a cloud provider that is down all the time.
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