- Cost: Ask any business owner, and he/she will be upfront to tell you how effective cost management means lower stress levels. The cost of the service is without doubt what you must check and compare with other providers before you jump the gun for cloud server hosting. Analyzing the contract and going through the fees that range from one-time, monthly, etc., are a must.
- Technical know-how: The fact that seamless connectivity to cloud server goes without saying makes it all the more necessary for your provider to be right on top of its game as far as technical proficiency is concerned. Your host must be capable of keeping your business running and connected at all times, minus any interruptions or lags. Complementing this feature is the assurance of uptime from your service provider. You must know beforehand the frequency of an outage your online business is likely to face, even if not accurately. Go through customer feedback before you opt for a cloud host as far as this factor is concerned.
- Migration and other tools: Transferring processes, data and applications is more often than not a tedious job. Before you decide to go in for a cloud host, ensure that your provider offers you enough backup and support to ease the entire migration process. Alongside, you should have also checked the tool set packaged by the company on the whole. Is security covered? How does data management with the host work? What are the analytics that can help you keep your IT costs to bare minimum? All these questions should have been answered.
- Performance and Security: Don’t just nod in to particular cloud solutions solely on the basis of uptime assurances. Everyday performance is also what must be kept in mind. You must be in the know of a guarantee by your provider for performance. Inspect the server, different types of processors involved, network bandwidth, disc access speeds much in advance. Accessibility of SSDs is another pointer that should feature on your checklist. There’s really no reason why you may want to ignore security, if you’ve kept a tab on everything else. It is by and large the provider’s duty and responsibility to safeguard not just your data but also the applications you employ. Complete security on this front is a must.
- Customer Support: One of the most important factors that you must check all through before making a pick from among the various cloud service providers in the market. What happens when your system or online business has crashed down? Will your service provider manage a debilitated application? There’s a reason why 24*7 customer care all-round the year is so precious.
Read through reviews on the web and ask questions on various cloud hosting forums to ensure that you don’t make the wrong choice and regret it later. After-all a good provider does mean that the backbone of your online business is going strong.
