Selecting a Cloud Service Provider Should Never Be a Hasty Choice

Did you know that 43 percent of IT decision makers have plans to increase their cloud investments throughout 2017? This is according to a recent survey which, when combined with the steady rate of cloud adoption seen during the past decade, proves that the cloud is the next phase in the evolutionary development of business computing. While this shows great promise for the future, cloud adoption is not something to dive into blindly.

After all, this is a tendency that many business owners regularly exhibit: after little research or preparation, it’s easy to adopt the latest technology trends without regard for the effects of these changes. Estimates identify the cloud as another technology that fits this tendency. In fact, projections place Software-as-a-Service as accounting for 59 percent of cloud-hosted workloads by 2018.

Clearly, the cloud is a valuable asset for businesses. Although, if a company were to dive right in (anticipating to immediately enjoy the cloud’s benefits), then they could easily experience detrimental issues.

As you weigh the many factors of your cloud solution against each other, it is especially important to invest time into considering your service provider--even more so if you don’t plan to host your solution yourself.

This is a very common practice, as not many companies can spare the time it takes to manage a cloud solution, let alone handle the administrative duties of adding new users, adjusting permissions, and the litany of other responsibilities self-managing entails. Utilizing someone else’s services allows you to invest that considerable amount of time into other matters, however, there is an obvious disadvantage.

By utilizing someone else’s services to see to maintaining your cloud solution, you are trading off your control for the sake of convenience. Therefore, if your provider encounters an issue, you will also face the consequences as you lose the ability to access your cloud services.

To avoid this, you will need to select a provider that guarantees maximum uptime, no matter what.

In order for your cloud solution to be worth the investment, your provider will need to care for your solution as a member of your internal team would, as well as ensure that interruptions are avoided, if not eliminated entirely.

In order to receive this kind of treatment with a solution that’s as complicated as the cloud, you’ll need trained IT professionals in your corner.

If you’re looking for these quality cloud services and freedom from having to maintain them, all for a reasonable, budgetable monthly expense, reach out to us at Washington Works. We can provide data storage services, cloud-based email, or any other hosted utility. All you have to do is give us a call at 301-571-5040.