Choosing Right Cloud Services Provider: 8 Critical Things to Keep in Mind

Only your decision to migrate to the cloud doesn’t guarantee success. Choosing a cloud services provider that meets your business needs and expectations is equally important, and it is a crucial aspect because a cloud service provider can make or break your game.

However, choosing the right cloud service provider is not as easy as it seems. There is a myriad of cloud service providers, and each is unique. While you can’t tell the difference, in the beginning, you will see as the complexity arises how little things make a big difference.

So, how do you choose the right cloud services provider? The answer is by following a process that keeps your vision, requirements, and budget in mind.

Eight Critical Factors to Keep in Mind While Choosing a Cloud Services Provider

1. Standards & Certifications

Start with checking the standards and certifications your cloud service provider adheres to. They will be a testimony of the fact that the provider will follow all necessary practices and standards in your cloud service efforts.

Following are the industry standards you must look for:

Besides this, make sure the cloud provider you’re choosing follows a structured process, efficient data management, effective knowledge management, and offers detailed visibility of the service status. Also, keep in mind that your cloud services provider continues to follow these industry standards in the future. Ensuring high quality should be a normal process, not a one-time thing.

2. Level of Security & Reliability

Cloud is a long journey, and partnering with someone you don’t trust is unwise and dangerous. That’s why security and reliability are two crucial factors while choosing a cloud services provider.

Assess each potential cloud services provider’s data and system security levels before you decide. It would help if you also had a clear overview of their measures to secure your data and governance.

Any provider compliant with ISO 27000 series standards and other recognized certifications is good to go. Just make sure they’re valid before you partner with the provider. You can also ask for incident reports, internal security audit reports, and other evidence of their actions for any issues.

3. Vendor Relationships & Service Dependencies

Cloud service providers have multiple vendor relationships and partnerships involved. It’s essential to understand them before you narrow down on desired ones. Doing so will help you make the right decision.

Ask yourself if the vendor relationships fit into the larger ecosystem and services to complement or support it. Otherwise, you may find yourself in vendor lock-in.

Also, see if there are any service dependencies or partnerships involved. It will give you a clear idea of how the service is delivered. Also, you can gauge the upsides and downsides of the partnership.

Note: Think twice before partnering with a provider having a large chain of subcontractors, and it will only complicate things.

4. Service Level Agreement (SLA)

A service level agreement (SLA) is a formal agreement between you and the cloud service provider. It will give you an overview of what level of services you can expect from the organization.

SLA is an essential factor to consider if you’re shortlisting cloud services providers, especially if you are specific regarding response time, availability, capacity, and support. It will help you set realistic expectations and set clear standards for what isn’t expected of them.

Here are a couple of things you must keep in mind while keeping the service level agreement in mind:

• Ensure there is a clear contractual relationship between you and the cloud service provider.
• Pay close attention to the legal requirements for data security hosted in the cloud environment.
• SLA should be strong enough to back you up if something goes wrong.

5. Architecture

The most unwise decision you can make while choosing a cloud service provider is to select the one that doesn’t support many products in your technology stack. It will inflate your costs as you’ll have to buy customer licenses for different products separately.

On the contrary, if you choose a cloud service provider that supports products you regularly use. For example, if you have significantly invested in the Microsoft technology stack, choosing Azure will be the wisest option. Similarly, GCP and AWS can be the best options if you regularly use Google and Amazon products.

All three major cloud service providers (AWS, Azure, and GCP) have similar storage architectures. Although, they offer different types of archival storage. Before you choose them, make sure you know the nuanced differences.

6. Tech Support

Tech support is another critical factor you need to consider while choosing a cloud services provider. You may have a competent in-house IT team. But even they have to liaise with your cloud service provider to get things done. Besides, there are times when you might face issues that can only be resolved from the service provider’s end. High-quality tech support will be crucial at those moments.

So, you must need to ask yourself: Will the cloud service provider offer you the desired support? Are there any time and access constraints involved? What level and form of support will you get from the cloud service provider.

Only after you have satisfactory answers to these questions make your decision. This way, you’ll save yourself from a lot of regrets.

7. Service Roadmap

While choosing a cloud service provider, it’s essential to ensure their roadmap aligns with your business goals over a long time. Also, they should be committed to innovation and growth.

So, you need to see if the cloud service provider you are choosing is committed to its vendors and technology partners. Also, they should be able to demonstrate deployments similar to the ones you desire.

Other factors you might want to consider are the overall portfolio of services the service provider offers and a service and integration roadmap.

8. Business Health & Company Profile

Last but not least, it’s essential to choose a cloud service provider with a healthy track record. They should demonstrate stability and a healthy position with sufficient capital to keep their business running for a long time. No good intentions or contract assurances can save a company if it doesn’t have enough resources to pull them out if they get into trouble.

Also, check for legal issues, corporate changes, acquisitions & mergers, etc. All these records must show consistency and stability, and only then can you trust them.

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So, these were eight crucial factors that you must keep in mind while choosing a cloud service provider. Hopefully, now you have enough data to make the right choice. Still, if you need any help, feel free to share in the comments.