Moving Data To The Cloud? Points to Consider First

What to consider before moving your data to the cloud.

Moving data to the cloud can bring many benefits to any business – cloud hosting packages have become hugely popular assets over recent years. The ability to store and control everything from a remote virtual resource can save a business extraordinary amounts of time and money while at the same time enjoying any of the other perks that might be offered by those providing the cloud solution. However, like all things in such business areas, there are points to consider before diving in and migrating a whole business worth of data to the cloud. It’s a case of assessing what you have against what you need and any other important matters to address before going ahead, which include the following examples:

Security

Unsurprisingly, the most pressing concern is, of course, security. Once you put your data in the hands of an external provider using a virtual storage system, it’s somewhat out of your control and totally in theirs. Will they be able to look after it safely? What kind of encryption will they use? Can they be trusted? These are all accurate and valid questions to address before proceeding.

Consistency

One of the other critical points to consider is reliability and consistency. Can you access what you need at any time without delays or lockouts? Most cloud service providers and hosting companies will promise an uptime guarantee that’s as close to 100% as possible, as it makes no difference. As such, those unwilling to make and back such promises with guarantees are probably not advertising their actual performance for a reason.

Supervision and Maintenance

There’s a big difference between a cloud hosting provider that carefully monitors your data and its performance and another that leaves it to its own devices. Unless they tell you how, when and why they will monitor your data, you have to assume they might not do so. Don’t just assume it will all be fine—make sure they lay out exactly what they will be doing for you.

Contingency Management

You never know when something might happen that could see your servers; thus, the data they hold will be wiped off the face of the Earth. It doesn’t happen often, but as you cannot predict disasters, you must ensure your cloud hosting provider can provide strong contingency management when needed. You don’t want to be left high and dry following any disaster, and with the correct type of backne, you need not be.

Flexibility

Last but not least, look into how flexible the cloud solution is. There’s a strong chance you will need to extend, alter, or maybe even reduce the service package you need later. After all, the whole point of cloud solutions is that they are 100% scalable.