Six Critical Factors To Consider Before Contracting Cloud

Cloud computing is revolutionizing the industry of Information Technology, promising flexibility, capacity and availability without limits, almost instantaneously, and at a very low cost. Several companies are developing technology and infrastructure to provide services in order to share them for several clients, providing a high level of profitability.

The model is clearly advantageous for companies, but requires special care in hiring, in order to avoid a number of risks in the long run, which can reverse the proposed advantages. Identify some critical points to consider when evaluating the hiring decision:

• Dependence of the Provider – It is important to always have an exit plan, familiar with the integrations and dependencies of their systems, so that is simple to transfer between providers of cloud services;

• Information Security – In general, the Cloud systems are safe. However, it is important to ensure that, before moving to the Cloud, the safety management processes are properly defined and that the chosen provider is able to implement them;

• Regulation of information – Some regulatory policies can prevent the adoption of the simple model, forcing the organization to establish control over their systems (internal or third party). In these cases, you need a detailed analysis of the technological architecture of the supplier and a very detailed transition plan, to cover all regulatory requirements that the company is required;

• Levels of Service – The service level agreement should be accompanied by a model of penalties for non-compliance of the provider, allowing, in extreme situations, the breaking of the contract without cost to the customer;

• Backup and Recovery – The preservation of information is critical for companies, and must be previously defined in a policy of safeguarding the information. For example the regularity of copies, the retention periods of data and recovery times in case of need;

• Expected long-term costs – These subscription services are almost free of initial investment and incomes are very low. However, it is important to ensure that, as our systems grow, the costs do not rise exponentially, reversing the initial scenario. This is possible with two concrete actions:

i) Detailed planning is needed to avoid a sequence of additional costs resulting from forgotten details and ii) Negotiating the terms of change (increase or decrease).