Factors to Consider When Seeking Cloud Solutions Providers

Cloud computing is one of the most advanced technologies that have a significant impact in business and economic models today. It provides provisional information technology that helps in saving cost to a large extent. It is the most popular and preferred web application for many global businesses. Also, there are many benefits linked to it, such as it improves the deployment time to apply, cooperative demand during crests, aligning the budgets for IT according to the demand of the application, delivering the application without raising the budget and risk to any data center. To get full advantages of cloud computing, it is crucial to look for the best and proficient cloud solutions providers who are reliable and expert in providing solutions. But it is necessary to look for all aspects when seeking a professional provider for cloud solutions such as -

• Cloud solutions providers must be able to serve and deliver services in an appropriate manner and on time.

• The service provider must have proper knowledge of private and public cloud services. Also, they should provide services that must be affordable for all kinds of businesses.

• A good provider must be proficient in providing a reliable and secured environment to its clients in scalable and cost-effective manner.

• The providers should have a sound and precise knowledge of the latest technology to offer the best services according to the market standard.

• These providers must be available 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week to a website by using diverse platforms and devices for the cloud environment.

• A proper technical support is also crucial in order to get instant solutions regarding the cloud service. As if the clients face any issues, they should be capable of contacting the service providers and get the accurate information and answers of their queries instantly.

Good cloud solutions providers always ensure to provide quality of service on time. So it is important to look at background history of cloud service providers to understand their way of working and the type of quality they can offer. Whether you are looking for private cloud or public cloud services, it is necessary to make sure that the service providers are able to give the best services in terms of both quality and cost. After analyzing all these issues, you can go ahead and finalize the best service provider for cloud computing services. 

Advantages of Enterprise Cloud Solutions Over Public Clouds

Enterprise cloud solutions are designed with commercial appeal in mind. They provide features of cloud computing in a managed environment for the business to implement in its operations. These solutions are provided to the companies at a premium cost. The public cloud, on the other hand, is a network of freely accessible resources that are accessed over the internet. There is no charge for accessing and using these resources. There has been debate over whether enterprise or public solutions are best for business. The reality is that cost should not be the sole factor in making this decision. Here are some advantages only available on enterprise solutions.

One, enterprise solutions grant their user a higher level of control and customization. The business that has implemented cloud computing as part of its information technology infrastructure needs a reasonable level of control. Public solutions offer low levels of customization. Features are decided on generic appeal, and users are only able to change few things of relative unimportance. Enterprise solutions provide their users with a lot of control. They get an interface through which they can interact with the infrastructure and change the settings of the same. Furthermore, at premium prices, they can seek for the solution to be customized to the specific needs of their interest or company.

Two, enterprise means better security and confidentiality. For a business, the ability to secure its data and transactions is fundamental to success. The current economy has shifted to a focus on data. The company needs a system where the cloud created is not accessible by anyone. Public access means that it is much easier for unscrupulous individuals to gain access through hacking the system.

Three, enterprise solutions are more reliable and stable. Public services are provided with a less strict service level agreement. Since there is no consideration paid to the provider, there is little the business can do except complain or switch providers. Enterprise solutions have extremely strict service level agreements. These agreements provide guarantees for the business over service delivery. This is because they create contractual obligations with appropriate channels for enforcement. The contractual nature of the relationship means that stability and reliability of the enterprise cloud is maintained.

While a public cloud may have the advantage of being free, it is not suitable for use in a business. Should the business require more resources, requesting them on a public service would be difficult; this is why enterprise is better for business use. 

5 Reasons for Choosing Managed Cloud Hosting

The era of cloud computing has arrived. When it comes to cloud computing and using cloud servers, there are a number of computing models that can be used. What model your business uses will depend what your business computing philosophy is centered on, as well as the primary needs dictated by your industry and any relevant government regulations on how your data is managed. There are basically three primary types of cloud hosted program models available: You have the low cost public cloud hosting servers and high cost dedicated servers. In the middle of these two services is what is known as managed cloud hosting.

Managed hosting is the use of cloud servers or shared servers that can be purchased in increments or virtual servers, which can be purchased one at a time. The focus of managed hosting is to create availability and provide a certain level of security. With managed hosting, availability and security are placed ahead of cost considerations as they are rated higher on the priority scale.

Below you will find a list of five benefits of using cloud servers with managed hosting that justify why you should choose managed hosting.

1. The Automation of Failover & Resource Balancing – The resource and failover balancing that is performed between the hardware hosts is handled through an automated process that is facilitated by the integrated VMware that provides the virtualization technology for cloud computing model. This automated system provides the capacity for failover protection, as well as the ability to maintain and update the hardware without the use of a maintenance window.

2. High Availability – The managed cloud is designed and constructed around the high availability model of the private cloud architecture. The required redundancy is integrated into the model through multiple hosts.

3. Hybridize (Physical Servers) – Managed hosting with cloud servers produces the capability for database engines that require physical servers to perform specific functions and still share their dedicated network with a cloud server. This creates a hybrid that is composed of both, physical servers and cloud servers.

4. Network Security – When utilizing the managed hosting, your company has the capability to install secure VLANs, IDS/IPS and firewalls, all of which would be dedicated. This allows for the delivery of an extremely high level of security that is normally characteristic of private cloud solutions.

5. Cost Effective – Surprising to most, managed cloud solutions are just as cost effective as the majority of public cloud models, when implemented on a monthly basis, instead or renting by the hour. This allows your company to gain the security and availability benefits of managed hosting on cloud servers while enjoying its low cost benefits.

Why You May Need To Pay More To Get Better Cloud Solutions

The most popular form of cloud computing has to be the public cloud. This form of cloud computing has millions of users worldwide and delivers a great service at little or no cost to the end user. As a matter of fact, most people have their first interaction with cloud computing on a public cloud. However, these free services may not always be the best solution for someone who needs dedicated cloud computing solutions, especially for use in business. When seeking enterprise solutions, the added cloud computing cost of managed clouds guarantees a better service. 

Cloud Computing Cost & Pricing:-

Monthly Subscription	$0
CPU Hours	$0.044/hr
RAM Hours	$0.0275/hr
Storage Hours (Standard)	$0.0003/hr
Hardware-based Networking (VLAN, firewall, VPN, load balancing, NAT and multicast)	Included($0.20/hr for additional VLANs)
Additional Public IP Addresses	$0.004/hr
Inbound Bandwidth (per GB)	$0.000
Outgoing Bandwidth (per GB) 0-10 TB	$0.200
Outgoing Bandwidth 10-50 TB	$0.180
Outgoing Bandwidth 50+ TB	$0.160
Administrator	1
Sub-Administrators	$0.007/hr per admin
Cloud Files (GB/day) 0-50 TB	N/A
Cloud Files 50-100 TB	N/A
Cloud Files 100+ TB	N/A
Cloud Files PUT, LIST, POST, COPY, GET requests	N/A
SOFTWARE UNITS	$0.001/unit
Customizable CPU, RAM and Storage	Included
99.99% Availability Guarantee	Included
24x7 Phone Customer Support	Included

Here are the reasons why the extra cost is justified.

• First, managed cloud services provide you with a use only cloud solution. That means the only participation required from you is the payment and then use. They do not involve you in the technical aspects of the design and deployment of the cloud solution you seek. This enables you to access cloud computing resources and use them quite effectively regardless of your expertise levels in cloud solutions. The benefit of this is that it eliminates the need for you to incur extra expense in the form of support services or creation of an IT department within your company structure. This enables the business to focus on areas where its expertise is more useful and better suited.

• Second, managed cloud services provide you with constant access to support services and necessary expertise. When you choose the managed cloud solutions, you provide yourself with access to the expertise the company has at its disposal. Since the company is tasked with the duty of monitoring and maintaining service delivery levels, these experts are placed at your disposal at all times. The result is the company using this form of cloud solutions gains access to useful knowledge and skill set. Furthermore, it is obtained at a much lower cost than hiring their own.

• Thirdly, managed clouds have a much shorter implementation and roll out time than traditional systems. Since the service provider handles all aspects of the installation and roll out, they are able to complete this process sooner than a company ordinarily would.

When considering using cloud solutions as an enterprise IT infrastructure, businesses must keep in mind that service delivery is extremely valuable. The extra costs incurred could be the difference between a great service which enhances business performance and a poor service which is detrimental to the business. 

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Importance of Cloud SLA

The biggest advantage to Cloud Computing is that the company eliminates costs by outsourcing software, hardware, and network capacity provision. It allows the business to perform its core business objectives in an optimal manner. The provision of cloud software and infrastructure needs a binding contractual relationship to determine the nature of services provided. These are in the form of SLAs. SLA stands for Service Level Agreement; it is an element of service contracts where the nature of service to be provided is defined. This explains to the party sourcing the services what they are expecting of the cloud company in the simplest terms possible.

The language of Cloud SLAs will be sourced from technical terminology prevalent in this particular field. As a matter of necessity, SLAs employ the use of technical jargon that a reasonable individual versed in the field would understand clearly. The SLAs come in different varieties; one, Customer based SLA – this deals with the service issues of an individual customer group. For example, it can be used where a company needs a private and personalized cloud. Two, Service based SLA – this addresses the service agreement for a particular service for all customers.

The cloud SLA enables the provider to set service provision targets that are within his capacity to deliver. This is because it defines Service Level Management SLM, practices. SLM are specific to Information Technology infrastructure and provide for monitoring, reviewing, and continuous identification of service delivery levels specified in the SLA. SLM ensures adequate service delivery in a timely fashion by providing service continuity mechanisms. It organizes the crucial aspects of service availability management, service capacity, and management of incidents and problems. Finally, SLM produces the service catalogue to ensure that clientele is aware of the current services available from the cloud solutions provider.

The metric defined in cloud service SLAs are such as; one, server uptime and downtime. The former is the time duration the server is operational and available while the latter is time the server needs to be offline for maintenance and upgrades. Two, Mean Time to Recovery MTTR; this is the amount of time service restoration will take when the component systems or subsystems fail. There are other service delivery metric specific to cloud hosting, all covered by the SLA. The main benefit of the SLA is it defines the exact contractual obligations undertaken in clear terms for the parties contracting. When enforcing service delivery this is the document one uses. 

How to setup a cloud solution for business use

Setting up a cloud solution for business purposes can seem daunting to the novice; however, this can be simplified by following several steps.

• Firstly, determine the service level your business requires. This should be based on the nature of resource usage within the company structure. The resources sourced can be simple software services to more complicated full platform and infrastructure services. Analyze the architecture of your business, to determine which resources the business needs and how these resources are used. For example, a business that develops software might only need access to cloud server and infrastructure.

• Secondly, determine the intended resource expenditure on cloud solutions. Cloud solutions help a business to decrease operational costs. This is achieved because the model only charges for actual resource usage and the support personnel are provided by the vendor. Where a business seeks to optimize resource expenditure on information technology services then the solution sought should be comprehensive in service provision.

• Mix and match available solutions to get the best solution for your needs. Publicly available cloud solutions can decrease costs for the provision of services such as email messaging. A private cloud service, while providing high levels of customization, increases the cost of the final solution. This should be only used to preserve confidentiality of information and secure transactions. A private cloud service, while costlier, has the added advantage of providing the end user with complete control.

• Undertake research into the nature of the available cloud services. Before committing to any solution, the business must check all available solutions to determine which is best suited to their needs. The difficulty of the research process can be eased by employing cloud computing consultants. These consultants will undertake to inform and train you on the availability and implementation of cloud services.

• Ensure that the cloud solution you select is optimized for business function. This means that the solution should have managed hosting service. This has the advantage of placing the vendor’s expertise on technical matters at your disposal.

• Check to determine the service provision of the vendor. They must provide reliable, accessible, and available customer care service at the request.

• Next, read the cloud computing contract carefully in order to understand the terms and conditions of service.

• Lastly, contract the cloud computing provider and have them undertake the implementation of the solution within your company architecture. This should help your business to optimize on functionality and streamline your resource usage.

Rule of Thumb: Check Cloud SLA of the Service Providers

One of the biggest and elemental service for data management, security, network and visualization is cloud computing. This enables enterprises and even individuals to store their data and other relevant information on a virtual storage called cloud. There are two types of cloud services offered by most service providers: public and private clouds.

Public and private clouds carry their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Few of the popular companies that utilize public cloud are Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Verizon wherein applications are shared and made available to millions of users around the globe. However, for private companies that consider data information as vital and confidential like banks and insurance companies, private cloud is a better choice and a probable recommendation for use.

To aid management executives in making one of the biggest decisions for their companies, various cloud service providers are already available for assistance.

Services offered by many private cloud service providers are standardized and they have gained several Cloud clients worldwide not only with the service coverage they offer but mostly because of their pledged Service Level Agreement (SLA) to their clients. Generally, cloud SLA for their clients includes 99.9% Network Uptime Target and 99.9% Server Uptime Target which means that they will fight hard to keep clients connected at all times. This network consists of the border routers, firewalls, load balancer and switches required for the operations of the company. These services are mainly hired by organizations with huge data to handle or by companies with very high volume traffic.

The Cloud SLA also guarantees a 30-minute response time for clients who needs technical support. This would mean that all reported emergency incidents by the company will be addressed in no more than 30-minutes. Lastly, a 1 millisecond latency of data transfer from one cloud server to another within the same network is also guaranteed to ensure real-time information.

Investing on the cloud is somewhat risky and often times expensive primarily on its implementation phase. Though some cloud experts vouch for reduced IT costs upon implementation, there is still no clear strategy on how to undergo adaptation or transition of a particular company’s traditional IT infrastructure to cloud computing.

Aside from considering the type of cloud service to pursue, you must also consider the SLA of a particular provider to ascertain if it will surely be a good investment for your success.

Best Cloud SLA service providers: http://www.opsource.net/Services/Cloud-Hosting/Service-Level-Agreement