With the right planning and IT Service provider, cloud computing can be frustration-free.
The old saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is certainly true in the area of IT, and yet so few companies are willing to do an ounce of prevention. This is particularly true when it comes to doing due diligence for cloud service providers.
This is the scenario I have frequently seen: a lone IT guy sets up one server in a colocation facility (or worse yet, his closet) and starts offering cloud computing services, such as Microsoft Exchange. The service he offers works just fine, until the server crashes, his internet access goes down, or he does not pay his colocation bill. Then, his customers are without access to their emails for days or even longer.
So, how can you avoid these kinds of problems? You need to ask any potential cloud service providers some specific questions:
3 Questions to Ask Any Cloud Service Provider
1) What is the current size of the company and how long have you been in business?
You want to work with established companies, not ones who are just trying to figure out how to make things work.
2) How many data centers are your service spread across?
If all of their servers are in one data center, then this is a potential single point of failure. It is much safer to work with a provider who has spread their servers across multiple data centers.
3) What are your standard operating procedures (SOPs) for outages and downtime?
If they do not have one, that is a very bad indicator. If they do have them, which is a good first step, you can ask to take a look. Does it sound like a convincing plan to get things up and running again? If not, you should look to another company for this service.
By doing a little due diligence upfront, you can save yourself a lot of frustration in the long run.
About Skyriver IT
Our goal at Skyriver IT is to deliver frustration-free IT. We provide small and midsize companies with the information needed to make better IT and business decisions. If you would like to discuss how we can help you reduce your IT hassles, please feel free to respond call (858) 812-9322 or visit www.SkyriverIT.com
