Make sure your cloud isn't run from a garage

Now that cloud is becoming mainstream, technology companies are rushing to use the term in their product names and descriptions. As a result, businesses are finding it hard to differentiate between these services.

This is a big problem as organisations may be thinking they are subscribing to a top tier solution but are in fact getting a service provided by a small operator that doesn’t have all the necessary services levels, functionality and support in place.

The problem here is that we may end up with another “VoIP” scenario.

In the past decade, VoIP was all the hype with many providers jumping on the bandwagon and claiming to offer this service. The problem was that VoIP is actually a subset of technologies that could be implemented by anyone but the quality of the implementation varied. For example – did you know that the majority of all international phone calls use VoIP? Did you know that when you call 000 the handset that is used by the call centre operator is using VoIP technology? The difference between these VoIP services versus those such as Skype is known as Quality of Service (QoS).

One of Telstra’s highly successful solutions is known as Telstra IP Telephony (TIPT). This is also using VoIP – however it has been engineered to deliver a quality solution every time you make a call.

So how does this related to cloud? As I mentioned in a previous opinion piece, anyone can run an email and file server from their garage and call it a cloud service. The problem is that Bob’s Garage Cloud Co. doesn’t have all the key technical and business components in place to provide organisations with a business-class service. These can include but are not limited to:

- Support systems

- Redundancy & disaster recovery

- Scalability

- Performance enhancements and feature improvements

- Economies of scale

There is a big difference between what Bob’s Garage Cloud Co. can provide your organisation when compared to a Tier 1 cloud provider such as Microsoft, Google, Salesforce.com, Amazon or Rackspace.

And while Bob’s Garage Cloud Co. may be a cheaper solution because there are less overheads, ultimately the customer gets what they pay for.

Sure the big guns of cloud may have technical issues occasionally but they have an army of highly qualified engineers and a plethora of support systems to address them within moments of occurrence. Can Bob’s Garage Cloud Co. provide the same level of support and responsiveness, as well as resolution time? An even bigger question to ask – will Bob’s Garage Cloud Co. still be in business in 5 years? Will they be around in 6 months?

These questions are more are important to ask yourself when choosing a Cloud provider – because ultimately you are betting your business on the choice you make.

Loryan Strant is a Microsoft Office 365 MVP (Most Valuable Professional). Follow him on Twitter @TheCloudMouth.