60 percent. That’s right, 60% of all corporate data is stored in the cloud. And this number has been increasing rapidly over the past few years. Today, hundreds of companies in India and the world offer cloud hosting services at an unbelievably affordable price. But is the price the only differentiator when it comes to cloud hosting? Of course not! So in this article, let’s find out how to choose the right cloud hosting service for your business use case. Choosing the right cloud hosting plans is of utmost importance for the success of your business. Let’s find out what to look for and the red flags to be identified while choosing a cloud hosting solution.
What Exactly Is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is nothing but using a third-party company’s IT infrastructure to store enterprise data and run IT assets like websites or applications. The said third-party IT infrastructure is accessed using the internet. Such infrastructure includes storage, RAM, operating system and technologies like RAID. AWS and Azure are two examples of cloud hosting services that go beyond just providing data storage services. A business can use AWS to develop applications on the cloud using a virtual operating system. It can deploy the application using the same cloud infrastructure.
The purpose of cloud hosting is to –
- Save costs by avoiding the upfront purchase of physical servers.
- Get state-of-the-art IT infrastructure – that too on-demand without paying upfront.
- Scale the IT infrastructure up or down flexibly.
- Offload the responsibility of maintaining physical servers.
- Access the enterprise IT workload from anywhere.
- Provide better services to customers.
- Serve applications or websites from different regions of the world without the need to set up physical servers in those regions.
- Enjoy better data backup and restoration service with multiple copies of data stored across different regions.
There can be many more reasons why an Indian company might choose cloud hosting plans instead of opting for hosting data or applications using traditional physical servers.
Factors to Lookout for When Choosing Cloud Hosting Plans in India
Choosing a cloud hosting plan is a big decision. Your IT workload will be on the cloud. Hence the quality of cloud hosting will have a direct impact on how your business operation performs. Here are some factors that companies must take into account while choosing a cloud hosting plan-
Reliability & Uptime
Shifting your entire IT workload to the cloud means that your business applications, websites and enterprise data – everything is at the mercy of the cloud provider. If the cloud service provider fails to deliver, so does your company. Hence, the first thing that you should consider while choosing cloud hosting plans in India is the reliability of the cloud service.
There are companies offering cheap cloud hosting services. You might be tempted to use them, but these services might cost you more in the long run in the form of downtime, slow speed, lack of regional data centres and other such issues.
Hence, while looking for the best cloud hosting plans, don’t forget that the accessibility of your entire technological workload will be at stake.
Scalability & Flexibility
One of the primary reasons why businesses shift their workload to the cloud is the fact that they want to leverage the luxury of scalability. And by scalability, we mean the flexibility of scaling both up and down.
A cloud provider that provides the means to scale up instantly but does not allow scaling down easily can be bad for the financial health of your business. Businesses need the flexibility of scaling up during times of high demand. They should also be able to scale down the resources when the demand subsides. A cloud hosting plan that looks attractive but tries to lock you down should be avoided. Always try to opt for those cloud services that use open-source technologies, and do not try to box you in.
Security Measures
When it comes to on-prem technologies, the onus of keeping the IT workload secure lies entirely on the business. However, in the case of cloud hosting services, the responsibility of managing the security of your IT workload is shared between the business and the cloud service provider.
There are many instances where bugs in the cloud platform jeopardise the security of the IT workload of companies. While it is not possible for any cloud provider to promise 100% secure cloud hosting, businesses – when it comes to cloud server hosting prices in India – should opt for those cloud providers that have a historical track record of providing the most secure services.
Pricing Structure
Although we use the umbrella term – “Cloud” to mean anything and everything offered by cloud service providers, it has many moving parts. Cloud server hosting price in India takes all these moving parts into account.
Now, each cloud provider offers their own pricing structure. Depending on the structure, some cloud hosting plans in India might fit better than others. Your decision to choose a plan should take the pricing structure into account. For example, if you buy the EC2 on a reserved basis instead of on an on-demand basis, you will be paying less. You must take such nuances into account.
Service Level Agreement
The SLA or Service Level Agreement between you and the cloud service provider is like the Constitution. It makes sure that there is no misunderstanding between your company and the cloud service provider. For example, the SLA clearly states what services your company will be getting, whether there is any lock-in period, how exactly the company will get after-sales support and other such minute details. Remember, cloud hosting plans in India must not be chosen just by hearing oral assurances from the sales or marketing department of the cloud service provider. Always read the SLA before deciding which cloud hosting price.
Data Compliance & Regulations
Today more and more countries are tightening their data protection laws. Any lapse in this data protection and the company will have to shell out millions of dollars. This is specifically true in the EU region, where the GDPR has made it mandatory to store the data of people belonging to the EU region within the EU border. All the best cloud hosting plans in India take data protection into account. Businesses, too, need to take this aspect of data protection into account before choosing a cloud service provider.
Technical Support
As we said, cloud platforms are made up of a lot of moving parts. No matter how many cloud engineers you hire, chances are your business will invariably need to contact the customer support of the cloud provider. Choose the right cloud hosting plan only after ascertaining whether the selected provider will provide meaningful technical support after you pay them.
Integration Capabilities
Do you know why people choose leading cloud service providers like AWS or Azure of GCP over others? That’s because these cloud platforms can seamlessly integrate with the systems used by companies. Before opting for a plan, your business must test whether the systems that your business uses can be integrated with AWS or not.
Performance & Speed
Lastly, businesses shift to the cloud so that they can enjoy not just scalability but better performance and speed as well. Not all cloud providers offer enhanced performance and speed. There are many instances where businesses experienced a terrible drop in speed after they migrated their website to the cloud. So look before you leap.
Conclusion
The key takeaway from the article is simple. Before choosing a cloud hosting plan in India, do your due diligence. The cloud platform must provide more benefits than your on-prem infrastructure. Only then your decision to move to the cloud will be fruitful.
About Author
Vipul Makwana is a Digital Marketing Strategist at Silver Touch, a leading digital transformation consulting company that provides end-to-end AI/ML, Blockchain, Big Data, and Cloud hosting solutions. He’s keen on reading about new technology and marketing.
