How to Get the Most Value from Your Cloud Provider

As cloud computing continues to impact the modern organization, businesses will need to look at how they deploy their IT environment – and where. While the use of the cloud addresses many challenges often faced by IT departments, there are two little known pitfalls of the cloud.

First, the “Perceived Performance Paradox”: many cloud providers are seemingly comparable because they sell similar services, but actually differ greatly when it comes to underlying hardware architecture and performance. Second, “The Goldilocks Effect:” the common industry practice of offering resources in pre-packaged bundles, rather than allowing customers to determine their own needs. In other words, hosting providers don’t generally offer the resource quantity that’s “just right.”

In this whitepaper from Expedient – we quickly find out the right ingredients for a solid cloud deployment and what it takes to partner with the right colocation and cloud provider.

Here’s the important point to understand:  in today’s market, providers too often back users into a corner with limited options, when they should be acting as a partner by tailoring a solution. The objectives of the person responsible for cloud initiatives in an organization are resource allocation, 100 percent uptime availability and lower overall costs, yet providers traditionally prepackage resources and market products as “easily consumable.” Well-known providers often offer resources immediately upon entering credit card information, but how well does their solution fit your need? Furthermore, what should you look out for when creating that long-term strategic partnership?

Download this white paper today to learn what it means to partner with a strategic cloud provider – versus one that’s just trying to give you resources. As the paper outlines, there are several key factors to look out for in looking for a good cloud partner. This includes:

Providing enterprise-grade environment

• N+2 Redundant hardware
• Operational approach complements a variety of industry and government compliance requirements including SOX, PCI DSS and HIPAA, supported by third-party SOC attestation
• Geographically diverse cloud locations

Measureable performance

• Ability to monitor network capacity (Mbps), memory capacity (GB), storage capacity (GB), disk I/O (IOPS) and CPU utilization in real time
• 100% uptime SLA

Assures optimal interoperability between virtual and physical platforms

• Colocation and cloud services located in the same facility, interconnected by high capacity bandwidth for seamless interoperability

Guaranteed security and compliance

• Robust procedure in place to address compliance issues
• Server platforms based on Intel® Xeon® processors that factor hardware-based Intel® AES-NI strong encryption protocols into computing transactions

Timely, quality support staff

• 24x7x365 on-site technical support
• Multiple available data centers positioned in varying geographical locations to offer redundant failover
• Ability to switch service to a different facility without customer-facing interruption in the event of a major service issue

Remember your cloud and data center are the direct drivers for your business. When selecting a cloud or colocation provider – remember, you’re in it for the long-run. This means working with a strategic partner that can scale dynamically with the needs of your data center as well as with the goals of your organization.