Healthy Cloud Habits

5 Healthy Habits of a Cloud Provider

Many businesses across verticals, whether in IT, healthcare, accounting, retail or construction, are migrating to the cloud, at least in part. In fact, according to Gartner analysts, at least 85% of organizations will go cloud-first by 2025.

As the rush to the cloud continues, it’s good to remember that not all cloud providers are created equal. As the new year begins, and we make resolutions about becoming healthier, more efficient, proactive, and so forth, it’s also an excellent time to consider our key business applications. In the following list, we discuss five healthy habits of a cloud provider to help your organization ensure it’s getting the most for its dollars.

1. Reliability: For businesses, an IT outage likely ranks as one of the worst fears since it can affect sales, production, customer relations and, of course, the bottom line. Businesses cannot afford to have their IT services go down, which makes reliability one of the top considerations for a healthy cloud. When selecting a service provider, look for those with a history of minimal cloud outages. Most providers will post information about their uptime on their websites, so it should be readily accessible. But if you’re already involved with a cloud hosting provider, the proof is in the pudding (as they say). If your organization experiences outages, and if those are not immediately resolved, that’s a good indication you’re in need of a healthier cloud option.
2. Availability: Reliability and availability go hand-in-hand. While reliability generally refers to a service provider’s percentage of uptime, availability is about the recovery time when a system actually goes down. The best scenario is a cloud provider for which outages are few and far between and short in their duration. This information can be found in a reliability/availability percentage. Look for vendors with the highest percentage in this area, keeping in mind even 99% means there is still a small amount of downtime.
3. Security: The specter of data breaches weighs heavily in the business sector. And with good reason. Cyberattacks increased 125% globally in 2021, according to the World Economic Forum, and global cybercrime costs are expected to reach $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion in 2015. As more and more businesses migrate to the cloud, security remains a top priority. Check with your cloud service provider to ensure they have the necessary safeguards in place. Measures such as multi-factor authentication, full encryption and centralized security policies are some of the key elements.
4. Scalability: A major benefit of a healthy cloud service provider is its ability to scale to meet growing business needs. Whether business traffic, workload or storage demands grow suddenly or increase gradually over time, a scalable cloud solution enables businesses to respond appropriately and cost-effectively. There are two basic types of cloud scaling – vertical and horizontal. Vertical, known as scaling up or scaling down, refers to upgrading memory (RAM), storage or processing power to an existing cloud server. Horizontal scaling means adding more resources, such as servers, to your system to disseminate the workload over a broader area. This improves performance and storage capabilities. Check to see that your business is aligned with a cloud provider known for its scalability and performance.
5. Support: In assessing the “health” of your cloud provider, take a moment to consider its support services. This is a pivotal area to ensure your needs are met quickly and efficiently. Does your cloud provider offer 24×7 support? Do they listen carefully to your challenges and questions? Are they nimble and quick to offer clearly defined solutions? Do they work closely with clients and do you feel like they are an extension of your team? If your system went down at 2 a.m., would they jump on the situation and restore service as quickly as possible? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you might not be getting the services you deserve.

In summary, the new year is a perfect opportunity to consider making improvements – both personally and professionally. In business, ensure you’re getting the best from your providers – with a particular emphasis on the cloud, a service that’s increasingly prevalent in today’s business world.