- Dropbox and Google Drive are data storage services.
- Hotmail and Gmail are two examples of email services that you can use to send emails.
- Slack, Skype, and Microsoft Teams are all messaging services.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which accounts for 34% of the cloud infrastructure market, is the most popular cloud service provider.
Microsoft Azure has a 21% market share, Google Cloud has an 11% market share.
Cloud Services In Different Types
Cloud service providers can rent or deliver four types of cloud services, functionalities, and strategies. These are:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)The ownership, provisioning, and maintenance of servers, virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, operating systems, and other resources to help organizations build and manage their operating systems, data storage, and network infrastructure.
Examples of this include Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
PaaS is a platform or environment that allows you to develop, test, deliver, manage, and maintain software. It includes storage, networks, databases, servers, and networks.
OpenShift and Google App Engine are two examples.
Serverless Computing
Serverless computing, which builds on PaaSs infrastructure and services, adds services for managing infrastructure and services.
This includes capacity, setup, maintenance, and setup. AWS Lambda and IBM OpenWhisk are some examples.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
SaaS is a service where a software provider hosts and delivers software applications and their underlying infrastructure to users via the Internet.
Benefits of Cloud Service Provider
Businesses must be more flexible and adaptable due to increased competition and consumer demand. Cloud platforms are a great way to increase innovation and reduce costs.
Lets look at some of the most common reasons that organizations turn to cloud computing services.
Lower Costs
You pay as you go by cloud service providers. Only pay for what you use. You can save a lot of money that you would otherwise have to spend on IT staff.
Cloud service providers can also help reduce IT costs by allowing teams to access data quickly. This allows them to save capital investments, improve employee productivity, and lower energy costs.
Security
Security is an important concern. You can eliminate the concern of security maintenance by choosing a cloud provider.
Cloud services also provide security maintenance that is more effective than an in-house system. Rapid Scale found that 94% of businesses experienced an increase in security when switching to the Cloud.
91% of businesses also believe that the Cloud makes compliance easier.
Data Loss Prevention
A cloud service provider can be used as an alternative backup plan to protect you against power outages, natural disasters, and other types of failures.
To protect against regional disruptions, most CSPs will provide redundancy in backup plans. It will prevent you permanently from losing your data if something goes wrong.
Software Patches And Updates Are Regularly Performed
Cloud service providers are responsible for updating software, including security and regular updates. You can avoid the hassle of regularly updating your servers and instead focus your efforts on other important tasks.
Reliability
Cloud migrations offer greater uptime and 24-hour support. This makes your organization more reliable and gives you an advantage over other companies that have not yet moved to the Cloud.
Mobility
Cloud services providers ensure that your team has access to data from anywhere and at any time. This was crucial in the past two years when most teams worked in hybrid and remote environments.
Cloud computing was crucial in ensuring they could work seamlessly.
Unlimited Storage Capacity
On-premise infrastructure is not possible to buy or maintain. You will eventually run out of money, or your servers cant handle more.
Cloud storage is not something you need to worry about. Unlimited storage is possible while only paying for what you use.
Rapid Development & Deployment
Cloud computing allows organizations to quickly move from idea to design without having to worry about infrastructure building delays.
PaaS and cloud-based service providers offer complete development tools and services, including testing and debugging environments.
"The pandemics organizational, economic, and social impact will continue to drive digital innovation and the adoption of cloud services.
This holds true, especially for use cases like collaboration, remote work, and new digital services that support a hybrid workforce.
Cloud Service Providers: Challenges
These are the issues you need to consider when choosing a cloud provider.
Performance Can Vary
Although every cloud service provider promises performance and availability, the actual performance can vary. If you dont take the time to research, you might end up with a provider that fails to meet your expectations and doesnt fit your business needs.
Technology Compatibility Issues
Businesses need to incorporate new technologies into their business processes in order to gain a competitive advantage.
Some cloud service providers might not be compatible with your existing technology. It is, therefore, a challenge to ensure that the providers services work with your existing technology and systems.
Cybersecurity Threats
Cloud computing raises cyber-attack fears, expanding the attack surface beyond an organizations perimeter. Security can be improved by choosing the right cloud service provider and participating in shared responsibility, especially around access and identity-proofing authentication.
Insufficient Support
As new technologies become more accessible, every organization will face challenges. Some cloud providers require more documentation and support staff to navigate.
How To Choose The Right Cloud Services Provider
It is becoming increasingly important to choose the best cloud providers for your long-term success. The market is huge, and there are many providers that offer a wide range of services.
From market giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to niche players that offer specialized services, there is a lot of competition.
How do you choose the right cloud provider among so many? A defined selection process and appropriate weighting to your specific needs will help you choose the right cloud provider.
We have compiled the most important factors into a list of 8 areas to consider.
Timing - How Do You Select A Cloud Provider
Understanding your business requirements is essential before you can select the right provider. Although it sounds obvious, clarifying your requirements and minimum expectations before evaluating providers will ensure that you compare them against each other.
This is the fastest way to reduce a long list and create a shortlist.
You can better interrogate your selected providers if you have clarity about technical, service, security, and data governance requirements.
You should also remember that when migrating apps and workloads to Cloud, the environments you select and the services provided by your cloud service provider will dictate the configurations required, the work involved, and the assistance you receive from them.
It is best to choose your provider after you have identified cloud migration candidates but also while you are analyzing and preparing the workloads for migration.
How Do You Choose A Cloud Service Provider? Consider These 8 Key Areas
Your requirements and evaluation criteria will make it difficult to choose the right cloud provider for your company.
There are, however, some common areas to focus on when assessing service providers.
These are grouped into eight sections to make it easier for you to compare providers and find the right provider to deliver the benefits and value your company expects from the Cloud.
- Certifications & Standards
- Technologies & Service Roadmap
- Data Security, Data Governance and Business Policies
- Service Dependencies & Partnerships
- Contracts, Commercials & SLAs
- Reliability and Performance
- Migration Support, Vendor Lock-in & Exit Planning
- Profile of the company and business health
Certifications And Standards
Conforming to recognized standards and quality frameworks demonstrates that providers adhere to industry best practices.
Although standards are not required to determine the service provider you choose, they can help narrow down your options.
If security is your top priority, you can look for suppliers with certifications such as ISO or the governments Cyber Essentials Program.
There are many certifications and standards available. The image shows some of the most common organizations that offer standards, certifications, and guidance in good practice.
You should also look for well-structured processes, efficient data management, knowledge management, and visibility into service status.
You should also understand the providers plans for supporting continuous compliance with these standards.
Technologies And Service Roadmap
Technologies
Make sure that the platform and preferred technologies of your provider are compatible with your environment and/or your cloud goals.
Are the cloud architectures, standards, and services of the provider suitable for your workloads? Consider how much customization or recording you will need to adapt your workloads to their platforms.
Many service providers offer complete migration services, as well as assistance with planning and assessment. Make sure you understand the services offered and compare them to your project tasks.
Then decide who will do what. Many service providers offer technical support that can help you fill the skills gaps in your migration team.
Some large-scale cloud providers may not offer sufficient support. You might need to find additional support from a third-party partner who has extensive experience with the target platform.
Read More: What Is Cloud Computing Services With Examples 2023?
Service Roadmap
Ask about the providers plan for service development. How will they continue to innovate? Is their plan in line with your long-term needs?
It is important to look at vendor commitments and how interoperability is supported. Are they able to demonstrate similar deployments as the ones you are planning for? SaaS providers in particular are looking for features, services and an integration roadmap.
You may want to consider the entire range of services offered by providers, depending on your cloud strategy. This is less important if you are looking to use best-of-breed service from many providers.
However, if you only want to use a handful of key cloud service providers, it is crucial that they offer a wide range of compatible services.
Data Governance & Security
Data Management
It is possible that you already have a data classification system in place. This allows you to identify types of data according to the level of sensitivity and/or your policies regarding data residency.
You should at the minimum be familiar with data privacy and regulatory rules that govern personal data.
The location of your data and any local laws that it is subject to can be important in the selection process. Providers that allow you to choose and control the jurisdiction where your data is stored, processed and managed are best for you if you have particular requirements or obligations.
While cloud service providers should disclose the location of their data centers, you must also be responsible for finding it.
Assess the potential to protect data during transit by encrypting data that is moving between the Cloud and within it, if applicable.
To limit unapproved administrator access, sensitive volumes should also be encrypted at rest. It is important to protect sensitive data stored in object storage with file/folder, client/agent encryption.
You should investigate the data loss and breach notification procedures of providers to ensure that they align with your organizations risk appetite as well as legal or regulatory obligations.
CIF Code of Practice provides useful guidance that can be used to identify the relevant security and data governance processes and policies as part of a provider assessment.
Information Security
Assess the cloud providers data security and system security levels, maturity of security operations and security governance.
Providers information security controls must be clearly supported by your security policies and procedures.
You can audit user activity and access via all channels. Get clarity about security roles and responsibilities, as described in business policies or contacts.
They should be compliant with standards such as the ISO 27000 series, or have been recognized certifications. You can verify their validity and obtain assurances about resource allocations such as budget and headcount in order to keep compliance with these frameworks.
Request internal security audit reports and incident reports as well as evidence of any remedial actions taken to address any concerns.
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Service Dependencies And Partnerships
Vendor Relationships
It is important to know that service providers might have multiple vendor relationships. It is worth assessing the providers relationships with key vendors, their accreditations, technical capabilities, staff certifications, and other relevant information.
Are they able to provide examples of multi vendor environments?
Consider how the services you are offering fit in with the larger ecosystem of services that may complement or support them.
For example, if you choose a SaaS CRM, are there any existing integrations with marketing and finance services? Is there a cloud marketplace that allows you to purchase complementary services pre-configured to work on the same platform as PaaS?
Subcontractors and Service Dependents
It is also crucial to identify any service dependencies or partnerships involved in cloud services provision. SaaS providers may build their services on existing IaaS platforms.
It is important to know how and where the service will be delivered.
Sometimes, a complex network may exist of subcontractors and components that all contribute to the delivery of a cloud service.
It is important that the provider discloses such relationships and can guarantee the primary SLAs across all aspects of the service. These subcomponents should be understood in terms of the limits of liability and policies regarding service disruption.
Consider carefully whether you are considering subcontractors or providers that have a long list of subcontractors.
Particularly when you have mission-critical business processes and data that is subject to data privacy regulations.
The Code of Practice demands that service dependencies be clearly defined and the consequences on SLAs and accountability are clarified.
Contracts, Slas & Commercials
Contracts & SLAs
Cloud agreements can seem complicated, and there are no industry standards to help them be constructed and defined.
Many cloud providers who are jargon-happy still use unnecessarily complex or even misleading language for SLAs, in particular.
This issue is being addressed in some way with the most recent revision of ISO standards for Service-level agreements.
This revision is a useful framework when assessing provider agreements. Agreements can range from online "terms and Conditions" to individual negotiated contracts or SLAs.
This is dependent on the size of the CSP and customer. CSPs with smaller customer bases are more likely than larger ones to engage in negotiations, but they may also be more willing to accept terms that might not work for them.
Providers that offer flexible terms should be challenged. They must provide information about how they will support the variation, who is responsible, and what procedures are used to manage it.
Module 10 of our online training program covers contracts, SLAs and cloud law. The following are key points to remember when it comes to contracts:
Service Delivery
You should have a clear description of the service and its deliverables. Clearly define the roles and responsibilities related to the service (delivery/provisioning, service management monitoring, support, escalations etc.).
How this is shared between the provider and customer. How is service accessibility and availability managed (Maintenance and incident recovery, etc.) These policies are compatible with your needs.
Protection And Policies For Data
Examine the providers data management and security policies, especially in relation to data privacy regulations.
You must ensure that there are adequate guarantees regarding data access, data location and confidentiality. Examine the resilience and backup provisions. To understand the transferability of data, review data conversion policies.
Terms for Business
The training module covers a wide range of terms. Your circumstances will determine which terms are most important.
However, the following key considerations should be taken into account:
- Service governance and contractual issues, including the extent to which the provider can unilaterally alter the terms or conditions of service.
- What policies apply to contract renewals, exit notice periods, and modification notice periods?
- What insurance policies, guarantees and penalties are included? And what caveats do they have?
- What extent will the provider be willing to expose their company to auditing operations and compliance?
Legal Protection
Provider contracts should contain standard terms that cover Indemnification, Intellectual Property Rights, Limitation of Liability, and Warranties.
Each should be carefully reviewed. These protections are usually the most litigious because customers want to limit potential data privacy claims resulting from a breach and providers want to limit liability in the event of a claim.
Read More: What Is Cloud Computing And Who Uses Cloud Services?
Service Level Agreements
Three major components should be included in SLAs:
- Service level objectives
- These objectives require remediation policies, penalties/incentives and other measures.
- Caveats and exclusions.
SLOs are usually about accessibility, service availability (usually as a percentage), and service capacity (what is your upper limit in terms of users, connections, and resources).
Accessibility, service availability (usually as a percentage), service capacity (what is the upper limit in terms of users, connections, etc. ), and response time. There may be others, depending on how terms between the contract (and SLA) are distributed.
You should look for SLOs that are pertinent, specific, measurable, unambiguous, and relevant. If possible, they should be auditable and clearly defined in the service level agreement.
SLAs should include details about how issues are to be resolved. Who should do it and when. These SLAs will outline the compensation available, the process for logging and claiming, and also list terms that limit the SLAs scope and list exclusions.
It is important to carefully examine these terms as service credit calculations can often be complex. Ask for examples of work or, even better, give all shortlist providers the exact same scenario with downtime and compare the differences in compensation.
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Cloud Commercials
Every cloud service provider offers a unique set of services and pricing models. Different providers offer different pricing options for different products.
Pricing variables are usually based on the length of usage. Some providers allow for shorter commitments and discounts for those who use them for longer periods.
SaaS-based products typically use a per-user basis for their monthly billing. However, storage requirements, contractual obligations, and access to advanced features may lead to different pricing levels.
PaaS and IaaS pricing models have more detail, with specific resource consumption or costs. Apart from financial competitiveness and flexibility, consider speed to provision or de-provision as well as resource variables.
An Application Architecture that lets you scale different workloads independently can help you use cloud resources more efficiently.
Your ability to adjust scalability may be affected by how your cloud service provider packages their services. Youll need to search for a provider that meets your needs.
Reliability & Performance
You have many options to determine the reliability of a service provider. First, compare the performance of the service provider to their SLAs over the past 6-12 months.
This information is usually available from service providers, but you can request it from others.
Do not expect perfection. Downtime is inevitable and all cloud providers will experience it at one point or another.
It is how the provider handles that downtime that matters. You should ensure that the monitoring and reporting tools offered are adequate and compatible with your overall management and reporting system.
Your chosen provider should have established documented and proven procedures for handling planned and unexpected downtime.
They should have processes and plans in place that outline how they will communicate with customers during disruptions. This includes timeliness, priority and severity assessment. When service problems arise, be aware of the liability and remedies offered by cloud providers.
Disaster Recovery
You should understand the providers disaster recovery processes and capabilities to support your data preservation requirements (inc.
recovery time objectives). This includes data sources, criticality, backup, restoration, integrity, and other factors.
The service agreement must clearly document the roles and responsibilities of each party, as well as escalation procedures and who bears the burden of proof.
This is important because, in some cases, your team might be responsible for some of these processes. If the providers terms and conditions do not cover recovery costs, you might consider purchasing additional risk insurance.
Vendor Lock In, Migration Support & Exit Planning
Vendor lock-in refers to situations in which customers using a product/service cannot easily switch to another vendor.
Vendor lock in is often caused by proprietary technologies that are not compatible with the ones of competitors. It can also be caused, among others, by inefficient processes and contract constraints.
Your ability to transfer your cloud services to other providers and in-house operations may be affected if they rely on unique or bespoke components.
This is particularly true for applications that must be re-architected to run on a service provider platform.
You can avoid vendor lock-in by making sure your chosen provider uses minimal proprietary technology or limiting the services that may limit your ability to migrate away or transition away.
It is best to choose value-added services with comparable and competitive alternatives on the market. Also, make sure to review your options regularly to reduce lock-in risk.
Be wary of enhancement creep, where service providers alter configurations, policies and technologies. In doing so, they introduce lock-in elements as part of their service.
Finally, although there are compelling benefits to working with a few key suppliers, it is important that you balance these benefits against the potential dangers of getting too involved with any one supplier.
Exit Provisions
Also, make sure you have an exit strategy for your relationship in place before you start. Its not always easy to move away from a CSP service.
Therefore, it is worth learning about their processes and procedures before you sign a contract. Consider how you will access your data, the state it will be stored in and how long it will remain with the provider.
Profile Business Health And Company
While it is important to assess the technical and operational capabilities and potential suppliers, you should also consider the financial health of the providers that are shortlisted.
If the provider does not have a solid business, it doesnt matter if they offer the most compatible or competitive cloud service.
You should ensure that your main providers are good partners for the long-term.
Microsofts short guide to provider selection states that a provider must have a history of stability, be financially sound and have sufficient capital to continue operating over the long-term.
No matter how good your intentions or contract guarantees, a service provider may not be able to recoup its losses if it gets in trouble.
Ask the company directly or conduct your own research to find out if they have had any legal problems in the past.
Ask about corporate changes, mergers and acquisitions or business aspirations.
To get a better understanding of the providers competitive position and aspirations, you can use analyst profiles, market research, and online reviews to gain a sense for their market status.
Sometimes, it can be quite informative to look at the past history of the management team via social networks such as LinkedIn.
Do previous roles demonstrate consistent performance and good corporate governance. What kind of customers are they looking for? Which markets are most important to them? Vertical emphasis could encourage investment in niche products.
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Conclusion
Consider both hard and soft aspects when evaluating potential providers. Not only should you validate their certifications and standards, but also the testimonials of customers.we developers.dev, a web application development company happy to help you.
