5 Things To Consider Before Implementing Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is now on the vanguard of the new wave of IT industry all across the globe. Based on its universal outreach, it makes obvious sense to foresee that your business needs to be on the cloud as well. It is valued as a promised land for IT professionals wherever they might be, but its not all sunshine and rainbows.

These caveats are statutory inferences and so, before you fly out to reach the cloud, make sure you do yourself some favors by understanding the pitfalls that come with it.

Some Exigent Considerations:

1. Uncompromising SLA [ Service Level Agreement]:

• A SLA is a crucial part of your contract which formally lays down the details of the services that you’re being consensual with. Like any other contract, don’t be laidback when it comes to manually reading/analyzing and reviewing it with your staff.

• Be wary of any loopholes that the service provider might have injected in the contract by going through the terms and conditions appropriately. A just service provider would give you the freedom to terminate the contract if and when the SLA is breached.
• After all that has been said and done, the bottom line is-Don’t get stuck with a nominal service which isn’t in compliance with your standards.

2. Security & Support:

• After you handover your critical data to your cloud service provider, you become transparently fragile and so, you need to ensure that your provider has the repertoire to safeguard your organization.
• Rigorously check to see if all the compliance/privacy standards are being met periodically.

• What are the various security practices employed? What happens when things go south? How robust is the backup and recovery plan? Imagine yourself accessing your cloud data in the middle of the night and suddenly it all pops away. What happens then? How swiftly will your provider respond? Be informative about the provided downtime tactics and troubleshooting operations.
• Know that even a micro-second of downtime can cost your business bucket loads of money.

3. Scalability & Continuity:

• Nothing is limitless. Even if it seems improbable, even a cloud has a ceiling above its head. Know your limits. Be cognizant of how much and how far you can grow and what notification protocols would you receive when you’re rapidly approaching a limit.
• We don’t live in a utopic world. So, be informed about the incremental additive storage costs.

• Once that is out of the picture, know your backup plan. It doesn’t matter if thousands of IT stallions are guarding your organization, failures are inevitable. So be informative about the business continuity regime that you and your provider will follow.

4. Reliability & Availability:

• Optimum reliability standards are expected coinciding with continuous availability.
• Once you’re up and ready to setup your business on the cloud, there are absolutely no margins of error.

• What are the average performance standards? What’s the downtime history? How often can you expect to experience power outages? What are the various troubleshooting scenarios and activities? Know your possible providers take on process longevity i.e. if they expect to be in and around the business for the coming decades or so.

• A reliable cloud provider will have redundant copies of your critical business data and infrastructure.
• Does the 24X7 customer support promise actually hold true in real-time? Don’t compromise on the anytime-anywhere accessibility of data.
• Everyone’s reliable on the face and so you’ll have to dig deep and get your hands dirty.

5. Cost:

• Budget shouldn’t be side-stepped before implementing cloud computing. Blind expenditures can only lead to your downfall. When it comes to cost cutting, cloud computing is as good as it gets.
• So know your rates and the various control provisions that can be implemented in varying circumstances.

• High priced charges don’t necessarily mean better services. Make sure you’re getting good value for money as it is detrimental to your revenue extraction.

CONCLUSION

All these aspects are worth considering before taking the final plunge into the cloud. As they say, Always be skeptical if something seems too good to be true.

About Author:

William Smith, is a Cloud and Mobile Technology aficionado and an efficient writer. Other than working at QuickBooks Cloud Hosting DotNet he actively participates in various forum discussions, writing blogs and articles on topics like latest mobile apps, updates of Operating systems, Cloud hosting services such as QuickBooks hosting, etc.