Are Cloud-Based Solutions Right For Your Organization?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a business these days that doesn’t use the cloud in some way or another. Before investing in the right cloud solutions, it’s important that your organization considers several factors. Here are three of the most common ones that your business should consider before investing in and implementing a new cloud service.

What Type of Cloud Is It?
If you’re trying to determine which cloud solution you’ll be implementing, the number one thing to consider is if it’s going to be a public, private, or hybrid cloud solution. Public clouds are generally hosted off-site on a third-party provider’s infrastructure, but a private cloud is more focused on hosting the service in-house on your organization’s infrastructure. A hybrid solution is typically a solution that is hosted on another organization's infrastructure, but still offers a level of control that you don’t have with the public cloud. Depending on your business’ needs, a public cloud solution might not be enough. For example, a public cloud’s storage space might be partitioned off so that only you can access your storage space, but it’s still hosted on the same infrastructure as someone else’s, which might make some organizations shy away from it. If your business would rather have its own private storage or private cloud, hosting on your own hardware is the way to go--or working with a MSP to make it happen in a hybrid environment.

What Responsibilities Does Your Business Have?
This is incredibly important to know, especially if your business isn’t the one hosting the solution. You should know what expectations there are on your end of the dealings with your cloud provider. An example of this is if you’re getting your cloud storage through a third-party provider. While they are the ones responsible for hosting it, you’re the one responsible for accessing it. This includes having workstations and an Internet connection with enough bandwidth to make full use of your new solution or service. After all, if your business is using solutions that it can’t reliably access, it’s time to reevaluate your options so that downtime isn’t ruining your bottom line.

What is Your Service Level Agreement?
Part of working with other organizations that provide goods and services to your business is communicating with them when you’re in need of assistance. Therefore, you’ll have to consider just how timely you can expect your cloud providers to be when faced with support requests. If you aren’t aware of these details, you could suffer from downtime that could have been avoided with a little more proactive thought.

Washington Works can help your business build out a solid cloud computing strategy. To learn more, reach out to us at 301-571-5040.