How to Choose the Right Hybrid Cloud Provider for Your Business?

by Alexis Powella Author

Cloud has become the most popular buzzword in the IT industry. Organizations seeking growth and expansion are increasingly transitioning to the cloud to fulfill their infrastructure needs. Most of them are choosing hybrid clouds for reaping the combined benefits of public and private clouds. Hybrid clouds offer the scalability of a public cloud with the security and reliability of a private cloud.

Choosing hybrid cloud providers can, however, be complicated considering the plethora of options available in the marketplace. Here are some key factors you should keep in mind while choosing one for your business.

hybrid cloud providers

1) Evaluate your Workloads

Before you begin searching for a reliable hybrid cloud provider, assess the workload that you will put into the cloud. Your solution will vary as per your workload. For instance, a complex analytical application needs a different kind of hybrid cloud than an old database.

In addition to this, you need to ensure your hybrid solution matures as your cloud strategy evolves. Search for hybrid cloud providers that can tweak their offerings as your cloud environment grows with time. Look for solutions that can seamlessly integrate with other platforms if you need to run the hybrid cloud in a multi-cloud environment.

2) Examine Infrastructure

The next step would be to assess if the infrastructure of your potential service provider is optimized for handling your workload. With the evolution of cloud technology, hybrid cloud providers have begun to specialize in different kinds of workloads. So, while one service provider may be specialized in serving a SAP application, the other may be focused more on supporting developers.

3) Evaluate Assistance offered in Migration

Migrating to a hybrid cloud can involve a host of unforeseen challenges. It is, therefore, vital to ask your prospective hybrid cloud providers what level of assistance they offer in migrating data and applications to their infrastructure. Assess if the support is adequate to make the task simpler and cheaper.

Some hybrid cloud providers offer hardware appliances to help you shift massive volumes of data manually. Others provide tools that allow you to map data between your on-premises infrastructure and theirs or offer consulting to ease the migration process. Check if your prospect offers any such assistance.

4) Check for Security Measures

The service provider should offer robust security measures that safeguard your data in a hybrid cloud environment. Evaluate if security features such as multi-factor authentication, encryption, and intrusion detection are available and if they can be integrated with the existing solutions.

The service provider should also be able to help you meet the compliance and regulatory standards that apply to your particular area of operation.

5) Assess Availability

Another key aspect to consider is availability. Go through the service level agreement (SLA) to find what uptime has been guaranteed and what compensation procedures are in place if this uptime is not met. If possible, go through customer testimonials to gauge the level of service the cloud vendor actually offers.

The level of service you are offered should be in sync with your workloads. For instance, your e-commerce application may need high availability but your archived datasets may not.

6) Analyze Pricing

While pricing should never be the chief consideration in choosing a service provider, it is nevertheless important. Make sure to check the operating fee with your service provider, particularly the cost of ad-hoc services to cover the spikes in demand.

Some vendors offer pricing calculators to help customers evaluate their potential bills. Check out if any such option is available.

Wrapping it up

Choosing a hybrid cloud provider is indeed a time-consuming task. Those looking for hybrid clouds should carefully evaluate what they hope to achieve through a hybrid solution. Their selection process needs to be weighed towards their unique set of needs.