Top Concerns of
Companies Moving
to the Cloud

• I don’t know how to move my application to the cloud.
• Will my application work in the cloud?
• Will it cost too much?
• Will my application and data be secure?
• What happens to my customers during transition?

Global Technology Providers

These are the household names such as Google, IBM, Amazon and Microsoft. They are large technology providers that have included a hosting platform in their offerings. They tend to be more formulaic in how they interact with clients and can have proprietary technologies for their platform. These vendors have complex technology platforms used by millions of clients, which has caused security, performance, and reliability issues. They also lack more high-touch and responsive customer support and account management for all but their larger clients.  

Best Fit:  Large enterprises that have strong IT staff, infrastructure expertise, and a cloud-ready application. They must be willing to align their long-term technology strategy on a single, large,  and proprietary platform.

Infrastructure Provider/MSP

These organizations tend to be smaller than the global technology providers mentioned above and focus only on the IaaS space but sometimes provide more than just infrastructure, such as managed services, fully managed environments, and other offerings. They tend to be more customer-focused and technology agnostic while still providing a state-of-the-art infrastructure. These providers tend to be more hands on with strategic guidance and have the necessary agility to address growth and technical adjustments required by their clients.

Best Fit: Small to mid-sized software providers that are looking for a combination of a technology agnostic partner with a business focus that will free up their own IT resources. Clients value an all-inclusive offering that provides expertise on a wide range of technology subjects including implementation strategies, migration, growth, and security to provide a tailored infrastructure focused on business goals, immediate and future needs.

Small Hosting Solutions/MSP

These smaller solution providers are vendors that buy into the Global Technology Providers platforms or white-labeling from other infrastructure providers, and then offer additional services. This means they don’t have much control over the hardware or platforms they are providing their customers and can suffer the same support and reliability issues as the direct clients of those providers. Other providers on the small side often don’t have state-of-the-art technology. These organizations tend to be very agile and will try to be highly responsive to their clients but can suffer from resource constraints. 

Best Fit:   Organizations that are looking for a simple hosting solution. Smaller hosting providers often only resell other providers technology platforms and don’t have direct control and accountability over what their clients are using. However, these vendors can be a good fit for clients that prioritize personalized service over the ability to scale, deeper technical expertise, and supporting organizations evolving business needs.

Picking the Right IaaS Partner

Selecting the right type of partner is purely based on your needs today and in the future. A good IaaS partner relationship is one that should last you years if selected wisely. Each type of IaaS offering has pros and cons in each of the three primary areas.

• Reliability – Ability to support continuous service uptime, changing technology and business needs over the life of the business relationship.
• Security – A robust, maintained, and constantly evolving security shield against both technological and human incursions.
• Agility and White Glove Support – Proactive and reactive support for all business and technology needs throughout setup, installation, migration, and support.

Reliability

Reliability starts with system uptime, but it extends to include business continuity and availability of your offerings to your clients. The best partners will ensure that your software services are performing for your clients in a way and at a level that maintains their satisfaction and positive Net Promoter Scores (NPS). Reliability isn’t a short-term need, and must be maintained over years of customer growth, technology updates, and business strategy changes. It requires a solid and robust technology foundation and a business partnership that is designed to support businesses as well as SaaS solutions. 

All hosting providers should meet the industry standards for reliability including:  

• Redundant physical and virtual infrastructure
• Standard maintenance and fully vetted platform updates
• Unlimited and seamless scalability
• Failover and DR options
• Redundant power and cooling in a purpose-built Data Centers.
• Multiple IP providers

The key to finding a suitable infrastructure provider is one that can continue to provide you with reliable services no matter how your organizational or technology needs change. For example, Global Technology Providers by the nature of their business focus on serving huge numbers of clients necessitating a “by the numbers” approach. This tends to put their platform and processes above client specific needs and forces clients to accept both technical and business constraints. Having a consistent process yields benefits of scale for the vendor but often removes the human connection and consultative services that benefit clients who require tailored technology solutions and business advice. This can cause some providers to be reliable today, but not tomorrow when the client has different needs. The key to long-term reliability is the flexibility to meet client needs. 

Security

Security issues come from two places: outside your organization, and from the people inside your company. Both are dangerous, but most organizations focus on exterior threats when reviewing an IaaS partner and their ability to supply physical and virtual protection from outside threats. As with reliability there are standard security requirements:

Physical Security

• 24-hour security
• Mantraps
• Biometrics

Cyber Threat Protections

• Encrypted Read-only Backup and Multi-site Replication
• Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention
• Volumetric DDoS Protection

The best defense against cyber threats is having an infrastructure that is constantly on the offense

The best Infrastructure Provider/MSPs provide tailored security recommendations and services based on client needs. This can include additional technology protections, internal security process recommendations, and access to best practices based on techniques that have proven effective at other similar clients. 

The battle against malware, phishing, trojans, ransomware, DDoS, Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks, and a host of other techniques is an ongoing challenge. These bad actors are not targeting just large organizations, but what they view as the “low hanging fruit,” those companies whose defenses are most easily penetrated.

A common misconception is that customer support starts when something goes wrong and a client needs to call for help. The best customer support is when a partner is preemptive and proactive, working with the client to make sure that issues never occur. This type of regular engagement enables an infrastructure partner to understand the client’s future plans and create strategies that enable them to be ready, agile and more responsive in the future. 

This agility is important even before a company becomes a client of an infrastructure provider because each client’s needs are different. One client could require moving an entire software infrastructure including their proprietary websites, source code, and complete databases without any modification, while another could be looking standard applications for accounting or sales automation with just their data transitioned to the new environment. Any of these, or countless other processes, require planning, teamwork, and specialized support. Smaller vendors are known for being extremely agile but can run into resource constraints that handcuff their ability to be proactive and supply the necessary support consistently. Those partners that have sufficient trained resources, well-defined processes, and systems in place are more suited to meet the needs of more complex clients while removing the need for the client’s IT support resource to be heavily involved. 

Conclusion

Being a successful software company is a difficult and complex business. Moving to becoming a SaaS vendor is a vital path to your long-term success. Like most processes if you can simplify it by finding  the right partner you will be better able to drive the changes you need to be a growing and profitable business.

Infinitely Virtual is Your Quality IaaS Partner

Make a smooth and painless transition to a better deployment solution with Infinitely Virtual. We will work with you to tailor a custom IaaS solution to suit your company’s specific situation. Give us a call today at  1.866.257.8455 and chat with us about your business needs. You can also learn more about what we do to support our software companies for long-term success.