Before contracting, you follow this checklist for hybrid cloud
Hybrid cloud computing is a very lucrative option for small to medium businesses who want to combine the best of both public and private clouds. For a business, the hybrid cloud provider is an important partner because it integrates on-premise systems with its cloud-based setup.
But before you award this crucial contract to a company, here are five things you must consider.
Determine the Workload
- Before even consulting with a cloud provider, you have to know your workloads that you want to pull into this hybrid environment and where will you locate them. For instance, data backup and disaster recovery are two things that require a very different kind of hybrid cloud service.
Ensure that the provider is willing to grow with you as your strategy changes or grows. Look at the providers that offer the exact services you need as your cloud environment changes. Look at solutions that work well with your platform and that of the provider’s platform.
Check the Performance
- You have to ask the cloud provider about how their infrastructure is optimized. This is important because as the cloud services evolve, providers usually begin to specialize in the kinds of workloads they support.
For instance, a provider may choose to turn their focus on supporting developers while others may offer a different kind of application such as SAP and other products.
- Another thing you must check is the performance latency. If your latency requirements are strict, you must find a provider that has a local edge data center or at least something that supports direct connectivity options.
Check Public and Private Infrastructure
- Next, you must ask your provider if they are able to support technology that you already use on your systems. Look for the easiest mappings between the virtual machine choices in house and the formats the provider gives.
When the two infrastructures perfectly match each other, it will make migrating workloads between the two environments easier.
Security is Crucial
- The provider must also ensure security in their hybrid environment. These often involve different security controls such as tokens. Since tokens protect sensitive data in cloud centers by pointing the records kept on the customer premises, you must ensure that these security measures are in place.
The cloud provider must also be able to answer any questions related to compliance and risk management.
Check Availability
- Security is just one important aspect of computing risk, another is availability. Check the provider and see how they approach making your data available.
They must be able to offer Service-level agreements (SLAs). This should include availability guarantees and as well as escalation and compensation procedures in case they are unable to provide.
With these factors in mind, check the cloud services provided by Outsource My IT. Your company’s competitive stance tomorrow is dependent on the strategic decisions that you make today. Allowing Outsource My IT to help you navigate the move to the cloud enables your company to go from having a regional presence to a global outreach
