This article what to look for while comparing the Cloud Services is primarily for the non-technical readers. We have avoided the usage of the technically right terminologies for easy understanding. The internet and technology have made so many advances available to businesses and the public over the last several decades that it can be hard to keep up with what is happening, what is available and what is useful for an users’ unique situations. Whether the need is for business, personal website or just for some sort of convenience for day to day need – there is a host of useful technology present if you just know what one is looking for.
One advance of the internet and technology that has become a staple for many businesses and also been adopted by many consumers for private use is the sometimes misunderstood Cloud. If one is already in the market for Cloud-based services, then it is likely that one already know what this service is and what it is intended to perform, but it is a matter is there is still a lot of uncertainty and misinformation about cloud-based solutions. It may be beneficial to understand what current options are available through these various services and how they can best be put to work for your company or personal use.
What is the Cloud?
Thankfully, if you feel like you might be behind the times when it comes to understanding what the cloud is (and isn’t), one is not looking at decades of catch-up. The cloud has only been around in its current iteration for about one decade. There are two ways to look at what the cloud is; the first is to look at what it is physically and the second is to look at what it is for the user.
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Physically, the cloud is an array of computers (known as nodes) situated inside a datacenter (or may be all over the world in certain limited cases, like in case of DNS & CDN. We tend to say it Edge Computing though) that act as storage servers accessed via the internet. Services like file-storage, video streaming and image hosting are serving static files which tend to be based on the cloud hosting because the idea of instant access to materials and information is a huge draw in society today – geographical redundancy is what is needed. When it comes to what the cloud is for the end user, the possibilities become a lot broader. The cloud hosts video conferencing software solutions, secure file storage and sharing, websites, technical support, databases, employees’ records and so much more. The cloud may be difficult to understand, but it offers a solution to a great many issues faced by businesses and individuals today – lower cost, instant access, support and storage, all wrapped up in one.
Compare the Cloud Service Providers
Inevitably, when looking at adding a service to your business, you will consider the cost versus benefit ratio to you to help make your decision. At one time, the cost of cloud based services was a huge factor as breaking into the industry could cost a great deal of money as the start-ups attempted to get off the ground. Now, the features being offered, everything from security to storage space are factors to carefully weigh based on intended utilization on a pay-as-you-go model.
When one is comparing the cloud services, the checklist (read our too much technical article on checklist) should include some, if not all, of the following considerations.
Success and Longevity of the business or usage itself should be the absolute factor in considerations. While newer arrivals to this field may offer attractive prices or packages in an attempt to get prematurely ahead; one frustration an user do not want to deal with is, having the chosen provider not to get disappeared due to bad business practices or being unable to keep up with market technology. Looking towards the companies that have a reputation, success and has been offering reliable services for a reasonable period of time are quite important points.
Development and testing must be a large part of implementing cloud services into an existing infrastructure. Cloud service providers should work with the clients’ company to create a test run for the software and solutions intend to be used. Developing a test environment and helping to test and implement the user’s framework to ensure that the cloud computing offers the best solution for the need. The service may not be an industry standard at that time, but should pass certain synthetic benchmarks.
Services like teleconferencing and employee monitoring once required specialized equipment and the manpower necessary to keep it running properly. Now many cloud based companies use tools built into their cloud-based framework to accomplish these works and the support for them is provided by the service provider.
Conclusions
If one can find a provider willing to offer the solutions one is interested, be it for the features and prices that work for your company, the cloud can be a very lower cost powerful tool to connect a small or medium sized business at all levels and keep it running with all the new technology. Before zeroing on one provider, compare cloud services may be with web services like Cloud Kompare are possibly useful.
