10 Tips to Choose A Cloud Hosting Provider

There’s no dearth of cloud providers in the market, precisely among the many reasons why you should be making an informed choice. One wrong move and you could find yourself tearing your hair over inane things that could have been easily taken care of. Here are 10 tips that should help you choose a good cloud hosting provider:

Cloud Hosting

1. Data transfer and speed: One of the most important factors before you choose a host on the cloud is the kind of data transfers the company offers. Usually, data transfers are affected by two things - the bandwidth that the cloud provider possesses and also its location. A local cloud host thus has an added advantage. You must also take into account the cloud server speed. An efficient host will allow you to scale your server effortlessly as and when you need to.
2. Data compliance: The location of your data can sometimes make all the difference. This is mainly because the host’s location is not independent of the norms it is supposed to follow in a particular region. The best practices employed by the company for data storage and maintenance should further have met industry guidelines.
3. Security: Similar to the aforementioned point, security isn’t something that should be overlooked. And you must remember that as a business, it isn’t simply hackers who are capable of doing much damage. You should have checked completely for security on following basis - data center, virtual server, network, cloud storage etc.
4. Scalability: This is without doubt one of the most important things that really differentiates between a VP and a cloud server. In the event, your business would need you to constantly work with multiple servers in varying proportions or even up and down the server performance on an immediate basis, cloud services should be your best bet.
5. Flexibility: The fact that technology is changing almost every day, the provider you decide to bank on must have the skill for innovation by default. Besides, the company should also be willing to make changes as and when necessary to the services it provides depending on the market demand.
6. Know what you want: It’s best to have clarity right from the start about the kind of cloud server hosting that you may be looking for. What exactly should your server achieve is an important question that must be answered right at the beginning. You should have gone through various functionalities on offer like API support, high – volume support, scalability, backups etc. Having a checklist at hand will make your hunt all the more easy. Be upfront about your queries and ensure that you have them replied much before you decide to make a pick.
7. Evaluation time: No, tests aren’t meant only for vehicles and other electronic items. Testing your cloud server hosting provider should come naturally to you. Check for the discounts on offer or even if the service is bundled with cost-free tiers so that new customers can complete the evaluation minus any hassles.
8. Support: This factor is important particularly for those who would be working with cloud providers for the first time. Imagine being stuck in a crisis and having no one to call? Another thing that you must look up carefully is whether the provider you have zeroed down on makes way for free or paid support.
9. Contracts and Agreements: There’s no reason why you should just glance through service level agreements. They’re meant to maintain transparency between the provider and the customer. Hence, ensure that you read through SLAs and contracts you are going to sign carefully. What happens when your provider does not match up to the maximum uptime promised? While every cloud host comes with its pitfalls of rare outages, check that your provider lends you a good helping hand in this respect.
10. Load-balancing: Your service provider must be capable of balancing out the load during heavy traffic. Multiple zones for maximum uptime are rather useful in this department.

Cloud hosting in India too is picking up much pace and as technology evolves, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the service could become main stream. Having researched and reviewed the host you wish to go with, make sure that you keep all cost-related factors in mind too. More often than not, it can make all the difference.