Five Fundamentals of Cloud Engagement

There are five fundamental factors that potential users should make sure they explore when considering a cloud computing engagement. Here's the checklist, and the most important issues connected with each one.

A blog forum by the name of Data Center Knowledge has an interesting piece, written by a cloud computing veteran, on the fundamentals of interacting with cloud vendors. The author points out that he is writing about infrastructure-as-a-service primarily (which makes sense, given the blog's topic area) but that his advice applies to SaaS and PaaS equally well. He divides his important considerations into five categories:

** Price Tag: Of course, cloud computing is all about rationalizing costs. But potential users need to know where costs come from in the cloud. The author points out: "When comparing cloud providers, you need to be aware of three different pricing dimensions: computing, storage and bandwidth." A vendor may offer a low price point on one or two of those elements, then gouge you on another.

** Performance: Geography matters, both in terms of latency and continuity. Find out where your vendor intends to run your application(s). Also, storage I/O is an often overlooked but very significant factor, because … "storage IO, not CPU, is often times the key determinant in your application excelling or performing poorly in the cloud."

** Security and Assurance: The primary consideration here is, who's responsible for security? Cloud vendors have begun to realize that this is a critical issue for enterprise-level organizations and are enhancing their security capabilities. Where data resides may be important for some organizations due to privacy regulations.

** Service Level Agreements: Shop around and compare, because different vendors offer different service levels (with different price points). And remember the most important word when it comes to SLAs: consequences.

** Support: What level(s) does the vendor offer, and at what cost?

Read the entire blog, and take this gentleman's advice to heart when approaching a cloud vendor.There are five fundamental factors that potential users should make sure they explore when considering a cloud computing engagement. Here's the checklist, and the most important issues connected with each one.