Today, all of the businesses are moving to the cloud as fast they can, but that doesn’t mean that you should sign a contract with just any other cloud service provider. It means that one should, first, at least, know what services they offer, their costs, security among various other things to avoid any nasty surprises that may show up later.
According to Susie Bernheim, a freelance IT expert, if you are a business, then, it’s of utmost importance for you to take care of which cloud services you decide to go for, for it must balance the technical requirements with that of the needs of the business.
The secret to finding the best cloud services for your business, according to Bernheim, is to develop a set of criteria that can address the business needs.
The results of an study about cloud services
In the words of Business Insider, a study was undertaken, and according to Dr. Zhiang Husui, who’s the lead researcher under whose direction the study was conducted, agrees with Bernheim. In his words, it’s of extreme importance to get a few areas covered before deciding on a suitable cloud service provider.
According to Dr. Husui, when deciding upon a cloud service provider, the very first thing he suggests to look for is the availability of support and services. However, other concerns, such as vendor management, prompt delivery, and such, should also be not overlooked. That’s because he has seen many businesses – small and big alike – that had neglected the above responsibilities, leading to their fall.
In his words, a business, whether big or small, should always opt for such cloud hosting services that have great to excellent services and have been maintaining their five-star rating consistently. Sure, according to him, small businesses at first, may find it hard to go for those cloud service providers whose monthly and yearly fees may be a bit high for them. In such cases, he recommends choosing a few providers that have a good rating over the last years and falls under the budget. Go through them, and see which can you afford, and which suits your needs, and based on that, he advises choosing the cloud service provider.
An expert’s opinion
Ben McJohnson, one of the top freelance IT experts on Upwork, agrees with Dr. Husui’s words. According to him, he has come across many issues with which the clients come to him, and upon deeper discussion with his clients, one of the most common problems he has seen is making the mistake of choosing the wrong cloud service provider, and in most cases, a wrong web service provider means a budget web service provider.
In McJohnson’s words, choosing a budget web hosting provider is not wrong; after all, there are many great budget web service providers that have excellent ratings. But choosing one that compromises the main issues such as security and compliance issues – those web service providers should be avoided at any cost. Such web service providers, according to him, compromise not the entire business, but it also makes the business susceptible to online threats and attacks.
So, then, should the budget web service providers be avoided?
No, McJohnson is quick to answer, and as he had previously mentioned, budget web service providers can be just as great as the renowned web service providers. Still, to make things easier, he recommends looking up about them on the internet first, before choosing to partner with them. Get to know about the brand, their ethics and certifications, and reviews – if nothing looks suspicious, then, according to him, they are good to go.
So, then, if the budget web hosting services are that reliable, should the big businesses, too, opt for them?
Dr. Husui doesn’t recommend that – according to him, the big companies run on a big-scale as compared to small businesses. Hence, it’s a given that there are going to be everyday operations, and while budget web service providers are great, they won’t be able to support the activities of big businesses. And thus, Dr. Husui recommends to think deeply on which web service provider should the big businesses choose – hyper-scale provider or the budget-scale provider for their daily operations.
Okay, so, we are a big business, and since the budget web service provider that we have looked into seems like a good option, we are thinking of partnering with them – and this is one of the most common mistakes that Dr. Husui has seen many of the businesses make which he had as participants for his study.
One of the most common reasons, according to Dr. Husui, is opting for the budget web service providers because of their low payment structure, and that is one of the biggest mistakes that big business can do. As expected, this step only leads to a decrease in profits because it would mean compromising on various issues such as purchasing and liquidation of software, hardware, and licensing. As such, it becomes tough for big businesses to have a clear understanding of how much to invest and what returns they should expect from a project.
And yes, that means big business should always go with hyper-scale providers that can cope with their everyday operations. This can turn out to be a big headache for many big businesses since not all of them are aware of web service providers and to what degree their partnership will run with them.
The problem of big businessess
Most of the big businesses, according to Bernheim, are first time buyers, as she had found out from her clients. Hence, most of them come looking to her for advice, amongst other issues, and since they are first-time buyers, they have very little to no idea on how to proceed with the partnership of web service provider, but according to her, that shouldn’t be an issue.
In her words, all of the web service providers engage in their own different way with their clients, so the businesses that they are partnering with are aware of everything. Say, for instance, a big company who is a first-time buyer will have no idea on how a web service provider will proceed with them, so, the provider themselves will assign such a team of professionals who will educate them and will provide their new client with reliable customer services while many other providers will extend their help by providing extensive knowledge on various topics and help desk forums, to name a few.
No matter what features each of the web service providers are known for, it’s up to the businesses to see which providers align with their interests and based on that, it’s recommended to go for the same. Though as a rule of thumb, it’s essential to consider multiple providers before entering into a contract.
