Cloud is a great technology that is helping every industry worldwide. It comes as a great blessing to make your work process a more smooth and flexible way. Well, we can say that in this era, cloud technology has become an essential business requirement.

There are different ways of cloud that the cloud providers are selling to their clients. A few of them are private cloud, public cloud, IaaS, and many other cloud types. Every business industry has a different requirement, and they can select the best as per their requirement.

If we research the market for cloud service, there are a lot of providers selling the cloud for many purposes. Before selecting the cloud service provider, first, clear your requirements and then go for the selection. For many industries, this is a very expensive technology to implement for the best results in their organization.

Here are the top questions that you can ask the CSP (Cloud Service Provider) to make it more cost-efficient:

1. Uptime and Downtime History

Cloud is a server where we can store our essential data. Uptime and downtime are one of the most critical parameters to select before a cloud hosting provider. If the number of uptime is high, it is better to select it.

Uptime means that the server is always up to serve the client without any problem, whether it is related to speed or upload time. It must work smoothly without any interruption. In general, 99.99% uptime is excellent to go, but as the technology improves itself every day, reliable cloud services providers serve five nines (99.999%).

If the cloud provider is serving triple nine, which means in a year, it may be down for less than 6 minutes. It is of utmost importance to get the details before selecting the CSP.

2. Measure in case of Natural Disaster

Natural disasters can happen at any time, it cannot be planned, but the work is already planned. So, if we rely on the cloud service provider to streamline our process, we really need to know what their plans are for the natural disaster circumstances.

How will they manage if the server is affected by any of the disasters? What are their security measures during this situation, and how they will serve during this period?

3. Pricing Structure

If you will check the market for the cloud provider, the pricing structure varies a lot. Every CSP has a different method and features to sell their service. Some may have a low quality of server infrastructure and can take high prices and vice versa.

They have a self-defined pricing structure. Before taking a package from a cloud provider, first, clearly note down all your requirement that you need to sort your problem. Some of the questions like storage space, security levels, and data backup number of days should be kept in mind.

4. Data Center Locations

The datacenter location is the geographical place where they store all their servers with the well-equipped requirement to make the server working all the time. Always ask the cloud service provider where their servers are located and why they opt for this location.

You can also check if they have only one location or more than one location. Many cloud providers have different server locations that store the client’s data to the best possible location, especially close to their workplace.

5. Customer Support Service

Nowadays, every type of industry deals in customer support so that their clients can easily reach them for any queries. In the cloud service industry, it is vital to know about the customer support process as it is a new technology, and everyone is not able to sort the technical thing on their own.

Hence, they always need proper assistance to accomplish and sort their problems. You can check their customer support process and on which medium they are available for taking the issues, and how much is their solving time.

6. Industry-Specific Solution

In the market, many cloud providers are very much industry-specific; they only serve a selected industry. It is the best practice as the company’s vision is very clear to them, and they know the audience they need to approach—Industry-specific, such as cloud accounting solution, website solution, mobile, app solution, and many more.

If you find a cloud provider who only serves a particular industry and you are one of them, then you can opt for them as it is easy for you to ask all types of questions as you both are on the same page.

7. Check Client Testimonial

Client testimonial says a lot about any business. Anyone can check the pros and cons by checking their client testimonials available on a different platform. Don’t just go on the website testimonials; check the various sites also to know better and more about the clients’ review.

 You can also check their partners and clients they are serving and how long they are serving their clients. Are their client are well satisfied with their service or not. It will help a lot to know about the company and its services. 

Wrap Up

These few questions will help you to opt for the best Cloud Service Provider. The list of questions is endless, as it totally depends on the client’s requirement. Apart from these, you can also ask many others question such as:

• What if my last data is lost? Do they allow any data backup policy?
• What are the security standards they serve for their clients in detail, physical as well as cybercrime security?
• What are the vendor lock-in and vendor separation agreement?
• What kind of processes do they follow to make their client always updated regards their update?
• What if the client comes with a flexible or customized requirement?

It is seriously endless. But these questions can help you know more about the service provider and help you make the decision based on their answers. You can easily select the best cloud provider as per your requirement at the best cost.