Why IT Managers Need Extra Care When Choosing a Cloud Provider

For the past few years, cloud services have experienced a dramatic boom in the world of businesses, thanks to the ease of use it offers, thus improving the role of information technology. Opting to move business operations such as storage and email to the cloud cuts costs, streamlines workflows, and eliminates the need for complex in-house software. But, as expected, this comes with certain risks.

Below are the top reasons why IT managers have to be extra careful when choosing a cloud provider:

Why Being Wary Wouldn’t Hurt

Joining an ever growing number of businesses that rely on a cloud provider for their everyday operations is extremely easy. Most IT managers followed a set it and forget it approach when using the cloud yet this can lead to a lot of problems for your organization down the road.

For starters, the ease of operation can make you forget about keeping track of your cloud contracts which can lead to in-house apps which no longer integrate or work when your provider suddenly upgrades or changes their offerings.

It is also a great idea to have a constant monitoring of all internal cloud being used for spotting any unauthorized IT activity. Although your cloud provider will probably give you several security features, the newness of many cloud operations means that not all bugs have been sorted out through yet, which make it relatively easy to get unauthorized access to the cloud when you chose the wrong provider.

Choose Carefully

Among the best practices IT managers can do to guarantee that their cloud provider is the right one is to know the exact content of their SLA or service level agreements and to place some consideration on the needs of their organizations.

It is not only about what is popular since you will also need to assess the cloud from every angle since your business will rely more heavily on the cloud services in the near future.

IT managers should take a step back to assess several providers and identify their benefits and risks. Thorough research could make a big difference between a flawlessly integrated service that makes your life easier and a painful and risky IT security hazard.

Ask the Right Questions

Considering the ever increasing number of cloud providers that offer an ever expanding list of services, it could be very top to choose the right one. But, when you ask the right questions and you take time in digging a bit deeper, it will be an easily manageable task to find the right provider for your needs.

For starters, you have to determine your exact needs. There are some software based cloud offerings which allow for online files, video and photo storage, services which offer online accounting as well as others which offer easy management of online customer relationship.

You also have to prioritize security so it is important to ask about the security features in advance and to know exactly who can gain access to your cloud data so that you can weed out any possible problems before paying for the cloud services.

For more information please view this blog