CLOUD ITSELF IS NOT A PANACEA

– SERVICES HAVE TO BE PUT TOGETHER AND APPLIED IN THE

RIGHT WAY IN ORDER TO MEET AN SME ’ S NEEDS . it . Cloud itself is not a panacea – services have to be put together and applied in the right way in order to meet an SME ’ s needs . While cloud should be easy to get up and running , it should not mean SMEs have to use self-service processes unless they spend big money or shell out on an expensive enterprise level contract .

SMEs should start by judging how their prospective cloud providers approach service . This covers how easy it is to access support , what that support experience is like and how quickly you can access a support professional for a conversation should you need it . Many cloud providers rely on self-service for support at the SME level , but SMEs want more direct contact and human interaction . On the provider side , any cloud provider that offers quantifiably better service than their competitors should stand out .

Alongside service , cloud costs can be problematic in practice for a lot of companies . Cloud implementations scale up and this leads to increased spend over time . However , many cloud services are quite unpredictable in exactly how much they will cost from month to month . This unpredictable spend is actually a feature rather than a bug for the majority of cloud providers – they care about increasing use and capacity , rather than what customers care about in terms of performance and spend . There are other variables to consider too – for example , the same cloud service from the same provider can cost different amounts depending on which availability zone or geographic location it is hosted in . Other variables include data transfer and networking costs that might not be immediately obvious .

Large enterprises can invest in large cloud cost management projects to manage their spend ; however , SMEs want more predictable spend levels . Ideally , they want fixed costs that are the same each month in every location , so they don ’ t have to spend more to host applications and services close to their customers . They also don ’ t want to be penalised with massive additional costs one month because they were more successful and supported more customers than anticipated .

For SMEs , finding cloud services that offer fixed prices and better cost control over time is the second big consideration after support .

26 intelligent

. tech

Intelligent SME . tech