Companies on all sides are moving to the cloud, or are considering moving. Surveys recently revealed that more than half of respondents, CIOs and IT leaders are putting the cloud first for IT strategy.
And why not? The cloud represents a leap in efficiency and flexibility over the previous paradigm of servers and local equipment. Users who choose the cloud enjoy increased productivity and reduced costs.
But to make sure you’re not “shooting in the dark”. When looking for a cloud provider, together with the company we will ask you simple but crucial questions:
What security-related certifications do you have?
Becoming a cloud provider is relatively easy. Obtaining certifications that show your compliance with strict information handling standards is not.
Cloud solutions for your business!
What are your backup and restore capabilities?
How does this provider respond to threats and critical business data? What security measures does it have? What is your disaster recovery plan?
“Whatever the cloud company, it is essential that it test recovery capabilities before making the service available,” according to Kent State University Todd Ryan. “Backup is easy… backup recovery is difficult.”
For example, a dedicated team is placed to work on the installation, configuration and monitoring of your backups, testing them regularly and leaving them in the right place to quickly and efficiently recover your data in the worst case scenario.
How will the data be transmitted?
The cloud provider has a responsibility to accurately report the status of their data, and any relevant issues that may arise.
It can provide a dashboard that allows you to monitor the status of the cloud at any given time, or provide an alternative real-time monitoring system.
The provider should allow you to monitor various metrics in particular, such as network, memory and disk capacity, among others.
In addition, deeper issues such as change management, usage management and service level data integration must be transparent to the customer.
