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Cloud-based products and solutions have become more advanced over the past decade, featuring broader scale and expanded possibilities. Cloud services vendors are pushing out cloud solutions and services for technologies in a wide breadth of verticals and industries, and hyper-scale cloud providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform continue to extend their platforms to create an all-in-one enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure. To help you evaluate prospective cloud computing solutions, these are five cloud computing questions to ask solution providers during product evaluation. If you find these questions helpful, check out our Buyer’s Guide which features five more questions to ask yourself, a comprehensive overview of the market, and full, one-page profiles of the top-22 offerings, as well as our ‘Bottom Line’ analysis.
 How can my business add cloud services?You may enter into an agreement with a managed service provider to fulfill a single goal, but then end up wanting more down the line. Many enterprises think that they just need help migrating their data and applications onto the cloud, but later realize they want to add automation to their workloads. Since your initial agreement will only cover the services you start with, understanding how adding services affects your partnership in terms of cost and support is crucial. What security services does the managed service provider deliver?When you incorporate a managed service provider into your cloud deployment, you need to make sure they have strong security systems to keep your data safe. Every service provider should have native security protocols and strategies in place to protect your cloud environment from both internal and external security threats. This also applies to data compliance; a managed service provider should disclose any and all data regulations that they are able to comply with. Does the service provider support hybrid cloud/multi-cloud?Many organizations are designing hybrid cloud and multi-cloud infrastructures, and you need to make sure that your potential managed service providers support these deployments. Some providers only support one public cloud vendor, while others manage multiple cloud providers; some are able to manage your on-prem infrastructure in addition to your cloud. Knowing what an MSP supports upfront will help you determine which providers will work for your enterprise. Is the service provider likely to grow in the immediate future?The cloud managed services market is still in its relative infancy, which means that many managed service providers are likely to expand their business within the next few years. As providers continue to grow, businesses need to know what their potential managed service providers currently offer, what services they plan to offer in the future, and when they intend to deploy them. Knowing a service provider’s roadmap allows you to know what they can and can’t provide immediately How easy is it to switch cloud managed service providers?You might find after working with a managed service provider for a while that they just aren’t right for you. It happens more often than you think, but if you don’t plan for this scenario beforehand, the cost of moving from one provider to another could be high. MSPs should outline an exit strategy in their service level agreement (SLA). This will let you know how the service provider will assist your enterprise in successfully transitioning away from their services
Banking & Finance June 10, 2013 2 min read Sherlock Holmes and his art of deductive reasoning can be described as taking straightforward practical principles resulting from observation, and drawing logical conclusions. The Holmes quote “Elementary, my dear Watson” is commonly used to refer to this quality of intellectual connection. Many financial firms and their CIOs apply this art as they weigh the options and risks when contracting for cloud services. Taking current best security practices and applying them to cloud provisioning is good business thinking. When making decisions on cloud computing solutions, security can easily be dwarfed by over-riding pressures of moving new services to market. CIOs are well informed on the flexibility and ease of use of cloud computing. They are also knowledgeable about the growing popularity and demand for media banking services. Elastic ComputingA recent report from Accenture talks about the trends of cloud computing and social networking reshaping banks. Banks in mature markets “can use cloud computing to enter and scale up in emerging markets more quickly and at lower cost and risk. And banks in emerging markets will use cloud computing to reach their unbanked populations by leapfrogging physical branch networks and moving straight to electronic and mobile banking. Already, a new generation of cloud-based online personal financial management applications—mint.com, Geezeo and BankSimple to name a few —are gaining traction among customers.” Speed versus SecurityAs this evolution takes place, what should be of concern is that in a recent Ponemon survey of US cloud service providers, a majority said they focused on cost and speed of deployment instead of security. Secondly most of the cloud providers indicated their systems and applications are not always evaluated for security threats prior to deployment to customers. These measurements should lead financials firms to wonder if safe guards are being adequately implemented. In light of the fast technology evolution along with the known security provisioning risks, it becomes imperative to verify security in cloud technology. Also, as Sherlock might deduce, when looking at cloud providers it is logical to take learned security practices and apply them to new services. The following are suggested common best practice questions to consider when evaluating a cloud provider:
Selecting cloud solutions and services can be quite elementary when following the art of deduction. Trusting your data to a cloud provider is a big deal. When it comes to choosing one, you should ask some tough questions to make sure the company you select deserves your confidence. Your information should be stored in several locations with instant failover in areas remote from your own location so it’s not subject to the same regional risks as your company. While a provider should not disclose the exact physical location of their data center, the organization should be able to assure you your data is safe with general information of that nature. 2. Are you sharing hardware resources between clients?You want to know whether your processing is being dedicated just to you, or if it’s being shared out among all the provider’s customers. 3. What are the specs of the data center you operate out of?This would include physical and electronic security measures, redundancies, and so on. You don’t want to experience outages or security failures. 4. How much Internet bandwidth is needed for the solution to perform correctly?This is one of the most crucial questions to ask — and you want to make sure you know the figure per user. You’ll also want to check with your Internet service provider to know both your upload download speeds. Slow speeds and limited functionality should not be a challenge. 5. Is my data automatically redundant across multiple data centers?This will give you a strong idea of their backup and security procedures and their ability to recover from a total data center loss. 6. What is the recovery time if the systems hosting my data are completely destroyed?Don’t forget to ask what kind of secondary backups they have, how often they’re made, and how often they’re tested. 7. Do you have documented data security policies?Knowing what kind of formal security policies they have in place will give you an idea of how secure your data is from the provider’s own staff. It’s not uncommon for a client to ask for a SOC report. 8. What is the average total downtime for the services I’m subscribing to?They should be able to tell you how often during a particular period of time — annually, over three years, over five years, etc. — their services are unavailable. It should be a relatively low percentage. 9. Do you outsource your help desk?Is it offshore? Outsourced? Will it give you the support you need on the schedule you need? Obtaining your cloud services through a knowledgeable local company that provides the work themselves and with more than one certified network engineer is ideal. According to Wikipedia, a service-level agreement (SLA) is a commitment between a service provider and a client. There are a number of items that you want to make sure are included in your SLA. The SLA should contain a clause clearly stating who owns the data (you), a confidentiality clause, and a clear identification of where primary and backup data will be located. It should also include an insurance clause, a guarantee of up-time, and a change of business clause covering what happens if the provider is acquired by another company. LBMC Technology Solutions is uniquely positioned to assist organizations in determining how best to use cloud software and services to save time and money and “stretch” resources to allow you to concentrate on your organization’s growth. Several different models and deployment strategies have emerged to help meet the needs of different users. Each type of cloud service and deployment method provides you with different levels of control, flexibility, and management. Review the differences between SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, as well as what deployment strategies you can use will help you decide what set of services are right for your needs. Learn more about the benefits of cloud computing and how LBMC Technology Solutions can help. |
What questions should I ask my cloud provider?
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