How to Choose the Right Cloud Service Provider?

How to Choose the right cloud service provider

The absence of a standard framework for evaluating Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and the fact that no two CSPs are identical complicates the process of choosing the correct one for your firm. In this piece, we’ll examine key criterias you may use to pick a cloud computing service provider that best meets your commercial, technical, and operational requirements.

We will presume in this post that you will be utilising public cloud infrastructure. There is no reason to do it yourself (which can be expensive, difficult, and irritating) when professionals can do it far better (no offence!). The shared responsibility model is such that you should be able to rely on cloud service providers to manage the cloud infrastructure while you focus on the cloud’s content (your data and applications).

Let’s Define Who Is A Cloud Service Provider?

The provision of services via the Internet by a network of computers is cloud computing. A cloud service provider (CSP) or cloud platform is a third party that offers cloud computing services to create public clouds, maintain private clouds, or provide on-demand cloud services.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now the most popular and widely used cloud service provider, accounting for 32% of the market share. Microsoft Azure Cloud, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud are further well-known public cloud providers.

The Performers

There are numerous competitors in this industry, including the major three — Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) — as well as a large number of smaller or specialised businesses. Moreover, AWS, GCP, and Azure predominate. (It’s easy to speculate about the impact that attrition and consolidation may play in this industry over the next few years, but that’s outside the focus of our discussion.)

AWS has been in the industry the longest and has the biggest market share, with 33% of the market’s applications operating on AWS. According to a research by Synergy Research, Microsoft holds 13% of the market, while Google has 6%. As the preceding figures demonstrate, AWS has long dominated the market for cloud platforms. Today, however, an increasing number of businesses are utilizing additional cloud solutions service providers. Typically, this is not a matter of replacing one cloud provider with another, but rather of different business requirements (such as risk and cost management) being matched to different cloud service providers.

Other motivations for using several cloud service providers may include businesses’ efforts to price their products competitively and their constant addition of new features. Additionally, many Windows-using firms receive free Azure credits. It may be prudent to take advantage of such promos (although we advise that cost should not be your first or only priority). 

Following are some of the most important factors to consider while determining which cloud computing service provider to choose.

1.Architecture

Consider how the architecture will be incorporated into your current and future workflows when selecting a cloud provider. For instance, if your firm has already made significant investments in the Microsoft ecosystem, it may make sense to proceed with Azure, since Microsoft offers licences to its clients (and often some free credits). If your firm relies heavily on Amazon or Google services, it may be preferable to seek integration and consolidation solutions from these providers.

Additionally, you may choose to take solutions for your cloud storage architectures into account when making your choice. When it comes to storage, the three major manufacturers have comparable designs and offer a variety of storage types to meet a variety of purposes, but they all offer distinct types of archive storage. If this is crucial to you, you will need to comprehend their subtle distinctions. Each service gives options for regularly versus infrequently storing and retrieving data (hot vs. cool storage). Generally, cool storage is less expensive but comes with limits.

2. Your cloud service provider will provide SLA

SLAs—Service-Level Agreements of Cloud Computing—sincerely establish a relationship between a user (you) and a cloud service provider (which you have chosen or will choose). Indeed, such connections include internal-, customer-, and multilayer service-level agreements that excel in response, speed, volume, quality, and efficiency.

If your cloud service provider is willing to commit to any of the SLAs your business requires, you should not wait to sign a contract with them. Picking a cloud service provider who shakes hands according to SLA requirements will pay off in the long run because now you know what the cloud computing service provider is managing and implementing. As per the agreement, you will communicate if something goes wrong.

3. Cloud Service Providers Should Offer Various Services

Three Cloud Computing Services: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS. IaaS is Infrastructure-As-A-Service, PaaS is Platform-As-A-Service, and SaaS is Software-As-A-Service. Before you see the magic of any of those in real time, you should examine your business requirements and engage a cloud-service provider for deployment, maintenance, and architecture solutions. Otherwise, you may choose a service that contradicts your business needs. Thus, R&D should match your business needs. 

Then, consult your chosen or another cloud hosting provider, who will expertly answer all your questions about the hardware and other platforms powering your business processes. More than expected, such a decision will help you migrate from data-centric business models to ones that systematically demonstrate all the benefits of powerful and dynamic cloud services, such as scalability, reliability, speed, and accuracy.

4. Cloud Service Providers Must Offer Security Recommendations

Recommended security measures let you manage company data and networking concepts to create shareable and useful connections between users. Cloud security features, such N/W security, keep your data safe and resilient across platforms with authentication and ease-of-availability. Considering if your cloud service provider is serious about providing such security measures! After choosing a cloud service provider, you must study or evaluate its security methods and policies to confirm this. 

You must not delay analysing the provider’s governance and compliance certifications, which are evidence of proportionate interests obtained by your cloud service provider. Thus, a cloud service provider that recommends security measures in compliance with cloud rules and procedures can help you control security vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and sensitive data exposures.

5. Cloud Service Providers Support Customers.

Carefully evaluate customer support. Because such support will help you get what your firm needs swiftly and easily. A CSP should also be flexible in offering support 24/7 (including holidays) via live chat, phone calls, emails, and other channels. This will increase your business’s response speed and average resolution time since customers will get the proper answers to their questions within time and access limits. In this mature market, support ensures that service quality and performance failure remedies scale your business processes. Ask your cloud computing service provider what kind of customer support you’ll get after paying a monthly fee.

6. Cloud Service Providers Offer Pricing Flexibility.

Cloud computing pricing varies. You should know that your pricing plan matches your business strategy, network, hardware needs, and network users. Ask your cloud service provider about the sticker price of your PRICING PLAN and other expenses connected with value-added service consumption per month, hour, half-year, or year. You can ask your service provider about usage-based pricing schemes. 

PAY-PER-USE, HYBRID, and SUBSCRIPTION-BASED are few of those in that category that are trending in the market ( lets you RESERVE cloud resources you may avail in the future for a specific period). Thus, you should not hesitate to ask your CSP about pricing plans, upfront expenses, and the opportunity to add services as needed to convey the greatest benefits of your business model to your consumers worldwide.

Wrapping Up

Although the factors outlined above will not provide you with all the information you require, they will help you develop a sound analytical framework for deciding which cloud service provider(s) you will entrust with your data and applications. You can add granularity by conducting a comprehensive analysis of your organization’s needs to identify additional elements that can assist you in making an informed selection. 

This will be crucial in choosing which vendor can provide the features and resources that best support your continuing commercial, operational, security, and compliance objectives.

Learn how to operate securely in the cloud if you’re already using it or if you’re intending to transfer your workloads to containers and beyond.

Category :
Cloud
Author :

Head of Sales and Business Development, responsible for ensuring optimal company performance and keeping track of client service level agreements. And this is simply my daily routine!

I enjoy planning and implementing effective maintenance to assure compliance with all disaster recovery plans while I am not working on my next project. I support technical employees in analysing and resolving difficulties in order to meet all objectives, designing and maintaining all IT processes using standardisation techniques, and maintaining all documentation for various tasks.