Until a few years ago the conversations in the Cloud Industry was around complexity, security & risk (read more: Cloud Computing Blog). Since then we have come a long way and now Cloud is accepted as a powerful way of delivering a secure, scalable IT infrastructure. It has now become an accepted mainstream approach for organisations, whether it’s public, private, or hybrid.
During our interaction with Cloud Consultants and CTO’s, they still feel Cloud is a destination. Cloud is not your goal or destination. It is a part of your mission-critical business, and there is no single endpoint.
With services like Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services etc, there is a rise in misconception that Cloud is a commodity i.e. you can go and buy Cloud off-the-shelf. To a great extend this is true.
But most companies, big and small, have more complex IT requirements than an off-the-shelf solution could ever handle. You’re not ‘any old business’ – so don’t accept ‘any old cloud’.
Key Points to Consider Before you can Buy Cloud Solutions
Scalable Cloud
There are NOT a lot of Hosting provides who can offer a truly scalable cloud. 90% of the Hosting providers are still offering Dedicated Servers or VPS. None of them can help you to scale beyond a point. Scalability will come with a unified infrastructure management platform designed for resilience, scale, and easy integration into a service provider’s data centre and business.
Ref: Cloud Infrastructure
100% Uptime or Zero Downtime
The primary reason of most of the of our clients to move towards cloud is their quest for 100% uptime or zero downtime services. For instance if you are running an E-Commerce website, each minute of downtime will be costing you expensive dollars not to forget drop in new sales or even drop in loyalty.
High Availability & automatic failover
This is the primary concern that most of the Cloud Consultants nor CTO ask while moving to Cloud. “What’s the plan for getting your business back up and running if there’s any kind of unexpected outage at the provider’s data center?” You always will need to ensure that your workload is distributed across multiple Cloud, so incase of failure of a data center, your other workloads are able to ensure that your system don’t have downtime time.
Bandwidth & Speed
While buying a Hosting service it is a common occurrence that clients believe that they will NOT get the speed promised. This is due to cheaper hosting companies or low-end Data Centers who have either oversold their bandwidth or don’t have a proper network topology installed. Always ask to see the topology of the network being offered, as well as benchmarks.
Is cloud the most cost-effective solution
A short answer is always a Yes. Finally, it all depends on how the cloud has been configured and who are your providers? There are a lot of providers who will offer you “cheap” cloud with along with host of hidden cost. Always be aware of those cost and ensure before you buy what are the exact cost incurred. If not, move to a better Cloud Solutions Provider.
Other Finer Prints
In addition to the points above, a provider should be able to integrate key business software apps, have solid service level agreements in place, and ensure that your customers’ details will be kept safe.
Always remember not all Clouds are the same. make sure the potential home for your core commerce site is with a firm that understands your business.
- Does the company know your sector?
- Have they dealt with sites that handle a similar amount of traffic and transactions?
- Can they offer you smart ideas, based on experience, to give you a competitive advantage through technology?
No, cloud is not a commodity
Cloud is about powering your business through the best tech you can find – helped by a go-getter who wants you to succeed. And that’s not something you get just by signing any old piece of paper – or accepting any old platforming deal.
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