12 Questions to Ask Your Cloud Provider
June 21, 2016 3:26 PM
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Moving to the cloud?
When it comes to picking a cloud provider for accounting and other applications, you should ask some tough questions, according to industry expert Clay Hart.
The CEO of private cloud hosting provider Diverse Technology Solutions, Hart laid out a dozen questions you should bring to any cloud provider you might be working with.
(A text-only version of this story is availablehere. )
The CEO of private cloud hosting provider Diverse Technology Solutions, Hart laid out a dozen questions you should bring to any cloud provider you might be working with.
(A text-only version of this story is available
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1. Where will my data be located?
Everyones a cloud provider these days, and you dont want your data in someones garage, Hart said. Ideally, your information will be stored in a safe part of the country thats remote from your own location, so its not subject to the same regional risks.
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2. What can go wrong during installation or migration?
This could range from problems with Internet connection on up to data loss or incompatibility, so you want to discover the problems that previous users have faced.
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3. Are you a reseller of cloud services, or do you own the equipment you provide the cloud services on?
This is one of the most important questions, Hart said. Are they hosting on their own equipment, or on Amazon? If its someone elses infrastructure, you may not have clarity on who is responsible for service and support.
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4. Are you sharing hardware resources between clients?
You want to know whether your processing is being dedicated just to you, or if its being shared out among all the providers customers.
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5. What are the specs of the data center you operate out of?
This would include physical and electronic security measures, redundancies, and so on. It might even be worth visiting, Hart said -- just to make sure its not someones garage.
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6. Do you have insurance in the case of an outage or data loss?
Hart estimated that 95 percent of cloud providers do not have insurance against your data being destroyed or unavailable. The reality is that a very good cloud provider will have insurance, he said.
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7. 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 that you know the figure per user. Youll also want to check with your Internet service provider to know what both you upload speed and your download speed are.
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8. Is my data automatically redundant across multiple data centers?
This will give you a strong idea of their backup and security procedures.
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9. What is the recovery time if the systems hosting my data are completely destroyed?
And dont forget to ask what kind of secondary backups they have, how often theyre made, and how often theyre tested.
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10. Do you have documented data security policies?
Every cloud provider has employees, Hart said. One of the fears is, Doesnt someone else have access to my data? Knowing that what kind of formal security policies they have in place will give you an idea of how secure your data is from the providers own staff.
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11. What is the average total downtime for the services Im subscribing to?
They should be able to tell you have often during a particular period of time -- annually, over three years, over five years, etc. -- their services are unavailable. It should be be a relatively low percentage.
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12. Do you outsource your helpdesk?
Is it offshore? Outsourced? Hart asked. Will it give you the support you need on the schedule you need?
Hart also noted a number of items you want to make sure are included in the providers service level agreement, including a clause clearly stating who owns the data (you), a confidentiality clause, clear identification of where primary and back up data will be located; an insurance clause; guarantees of uptime; and a change of business clause covering what happens if the provider is acquired by another company.
Hart also noted a number of items you want to make sure are included in the providers service level agreement, including a clause clearly stating who owns the data (you), a confidentiality clause, clear identification of where primary and back up data will be located; an insurance clause; guarantees of uptime; and a change of business clause covering what happens if the provider is acquired by another company.
