Blog
Updated 4 Mar 2021
Who knew it would be this hard to choose a cloud provider? Vendors make cloud technology seem so easy, but as you discovered, that’s not always the case.
The cloud is expanding and becoming more complex. Choosing a cloud provider requires working with your specific business use case, and successfully migrating is key to selecting the right provider.
This article will expand upon these three issues and provide guidelines you can use to choose the right cloud provider for your needs.
Choosing a cloud provider can seem like a monumental task at first. The cloud, cloud services, and DevOps are expanding in scope and show no sign of slowing down or reducing complexity.
Every cloud service provider is different. It can be challenging to know which provider will best serve your company goals, especially since the cloud, and cloud providers, keep changing and evolving.
No cloud provider can deliver a 100% perfect and compatible service, and no cloud provider will remain the same from the start to the end of a contract. Providers add new services, new business scopes, and new priorities consistently. Afterall, what good is the CI/CD model without the push for continuous improvement?
While cloud providers generally offer the same services at comparable prices, especially among the market leaders like Amazon and Microsoft, it’s difficult to separate a leader from the pack. This experience can be frustrating for a client who needs specific metrics met by their cloud provider.
Another thing to consider is how your cloud provider will handle your project. Even within cloud services, multiple deployment options exist, adding further complexity to the equation.
Depending on your business use cases, slightly different services may be added to your account to meet your business needs. You will most likely not be in charge of making these decisions—they will be made for you by vendor engineers and managers based on your requirements.
While these experiences are common to cloud providers and clients, this does not have to be your experience. You should be in complete control when choosing a cloud provider, based on your business’s specific nature and the migration process, once you have determined your provider.
You know your business best. You know your key value propositions, business use justifications, what your users want, and the direction you want your business to head. Companies that state they understand your business better than you do not. They are just trying to make a quick sale, and you should avoid them.
Choosing the right cloud provider is critical and should be driven by your business’s specific nature. You can follow these three guidelines to select the most compatible cloud services provider for your needs:
Even if a candidate is perfect in every other way, restrictive regional locations may disqualify a candidate. Consider where companies, regardless of size, are keeping data in data centers globally. Depending on the location of specific data, data may be subject to specific government policies that may affect its integrity, security, and confidentiality.
Every country and region has different applicable laws and limitations, so you need to consider how your data will be affected by its storage location.
Transitioning to any new third-party supplier can be a scary experience at first. Relying on a third-party supplier to fulfill necessary work under strict deadlines is a gamble you cannot afford to lose.
Luckily, the web is not the wild west it once was. Here’s why:
With many cloud service providers following the same or similar modes of development and delivery, the main criteria you should keep in mind is compatibility. Is this company an excellent cultural fit? Do your business needs fit within their scope of practice? Do you like their business practices and offerings?
These, and many other, questions are paramount to ensuring that migrating to the right provider is a quick and straightforward process to benefit both your company and the supplier.
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