Perhaps your organization has met its virtualization project goals and is ready for the next phase. Or your application developers have dabbled with commodity public cloud and found performance lagged. Maybe your IT architects tried to piece together an onsite private cloud and determined it was overly complicated.
Regardless of the circumstance, many IT teams just like yours are considering hosted private cloud services as part of their cloud strategy. Not all hosted private cloud services are created equal though, and it’s important to ask these questions when evaluating partners:
1. Just how private is it?
Many hosted private cloud services have ambiguous titles such as virtual private data center or virtual private cloud. This could mean that the servers aren’t physically isolated to your account and privacy is only at the virtual machine layer, potentially increasing risk.
2. How flexible is the architecture?
A common complaint with commodity public cloud is that the architectural options are too restrictive. Be sure your provider offers enough configuration options to make the investment worthwhile.
3. How quickly can I be up and running?
One of the main selling points with cloud computing is the ability to “spin up” resources quickly. Public cloud services are very good at this since the environments are preset by the provider. Check to see that the hosted private cloud you’re considering isn’t too far off.
4. Is the technology compatible with what I’m using onsite?
While still a relatively new concept, the idea of dynamically moving compute resources from onsite to a hosted solution based upon selected criteria is the future of cloud computing. This is made more difficult if the technologies being used in both locations do not match.
5. Does the provider offer additional IT managed services?
Hosted cloud services by themselves can be quite simple and not fully reflect the features your team is using onsite. Look for a hosted solution that offers more than just basic compute and storage.
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The options in hosted private cloud solutions will grow quickly during 2013 as customer interest increases. By asking these five questions of the providers you are currently working with or considering, you can be better assured of getting the technical and business results your organization set out to achieve.
Dell Cloud Dedicated Service responds favorably to all these questions. Learn more about why it’s a great fit for many organizations in the video below.
For more information on Dell Cloud Dedicated Service please visit Dell’s website or contact your Dell Sales Representative.