Moving Data To The Cloud? Points to Consider First

First published in 2014, rewritten in 2026 so the advice holds today.

For most UK online retailers, the question in 2026 isn't whether to use cloud hosting but which provider, which model, and on what terms. Shopify Plus, BigCommerce and most modern platforms are built on cloud infrastructure by default, and many businesses also run cloud-hosted ERP, warehouse management and analytics tools alongside their storefront. That makes it easy to assume the hard decisions have already been made for you. They haven't. Whether you're migrating a legacy system, switching platforms, or adding a new cloud service to your stack, the same due diligence applies before you sign anything.

Security and compliance

Security is still the first question to ask, but the framework around it has changed. Since the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR came into force, businesses handling customer data have legal obligations around where and how that data is stored and processed, not just good practice to follow.

• Ask where your data will physically sit, and whether it will ever leave the UK or EEA
• Check what encryption is used, both in transit and at rest
• If you take card payments, confirm the provider's setup supports your PCI DSS obligations
• Get clarity on who is the data controller and who is the data processor in the relationship, since this affects liability

A reputable provider will answer these questions directly and point you to independent certifications rather than asking you to take their word for it.

Reliability and uptime

An e-commerce site that's unreachable is a site that isn't selling. Most major cloud providers now publish uptime guarantees, typically expressed as a service level agreement with defined compensation if they're missed. Read the small print rather than the headline percentage: a 99.9% guarantee still allows for roughly 8-9 hours of downtime a year, and what matters is whether that downtime is scheduled maintenance or unplanned failure, and whether it's likely to hit your peak trading periods.

Ask for real performance history, not just the promised figure. A provider unwilling to share this is worth treating with caution.

Monitoring, support and maintenance

There's a real difference between a provider that actively monitors performance and one that waits for you to report a problem. Before signing, find out:

• Whether monitoring is proactive and around the clock, or reactive only
• What the response times are for different severities of issue, and whether these are contractual
• Who you actually speak to when something goes wrong, and whether support is UK-based or in a compatible time zone

Don't assume this will be fine because the provider is well known. Get it written down.

Backup and disaster recovery

Outages and data loss are rarer than they were a decade ago, but they still happen, and the consequences for an online business can be severe. Confirm how often backups are taken, where they're stored, how long restoration takes, and whether you can test a recovery yourself rather than simply trusting the provider's claims. Ransomware has made this more pressing than it was in 2014: ask specifically how the provider protects backups from being encrypted or deleted alongside live data in an attack.

Flexibility and avoiding lock-in

Scalability was cloud computing's original selling point, and it remains one of the strongest reasons to use it. But flexibility also means being able to leave. Before committing, check:

• How easily you can scale storage and processing up or down, and whether costs are transparent as you do
• How your data can be exported if you switch providers, and in what format
• Whether the contract ties you into a single vendor's ecosystem in ways that would be costly to unwind later

Some businesses now deliberately spread workloads across more than one provider, or keep critical systems portable, specifically to avoid dependence on a single supplier. That's not necessary for every retailer, but it's worth knowing it's an option.

The takeaway

Cloud hosting is no longer the leap of faith it was in 2014, and for most UK online retailers it's the sensible default rather than a risk to be talked into. The questions worth asking haven't changed much: where your data lives, how it's protected, how quickly problems get fixed, how backups work, and how easily you can change your mind later. Get straight answers to those five things before you migrate anything, and the technology itself will look after the rest.