How To Choose A Cloud Storage Service

Cloud storage and backup services help protect data from all kinds of risks and enable collaboration between team members working with shared resources. Choosing a cloud provider comes down to the company's specific needs.

This trend is set to continue throughout 2021 with more reliance on online backup data in the cloud and less focus on local storage hardware and infrastructure.

To safeguard daily operations data from technical issues, an end-to-end cloud platform capable of creating continuous backups should be on your radar.

If an online backup service is one of your requirements, consider the following:

Pick A Service with Sufficient Volume

Choosing a cloud storage provider requires analysis of how much space is offered. Personal storage considerations for a few key documents can cut costs by opting for modest amounts of cloud space. An in-depth analysis about storage scalability requires consultation.

For small to mid-sized businesses, specific attention to rapid growth and scalability potential is a necessity. Provider's potential to grow backups as quickly as the business' growth can revolutionize the company's continuity planning.

Decide Between Public, Private, and Hybrid Cloud Services

Regulatory requirements in some instances demand dedicated, or private, infrastructure and are dependent on individual businesses.

Close attention should be paid to how the storage is distributed. While some businesses are okay with opting for shared or public backup solutions, understanding the company's unique needs is the most effective way to understand the connection between compliance and the company's backup requirements.

Some cloud storage subscriptions permit unlimited user connections but charge based on the total amount of storage used. This benefits a business environment where multiple employees can access the files simultaneously.

Emphasison Security

Maintaining cloud infrastructure requires an effective web application security strategy. Data in the cloud is also vulnerable to hacking attacks and malware infections. Data breaches impact the reputation and trust of clients and partners, while loss of intellectual property (IP) to competitors affects product releases.

Regulatory implications of data breaches result in monetary losses considering legal and contractual liabilities and a negative brand impact that causes a decrease in market value.

Location and Data Storage Practices

Just like a local storage system, cloud server networks suffer from all manner of technical failures. Many cloud service providers can tell precisely how data is protected in their data centers against physical intruders, cybercrime, natural disasters like hurricanes and flooding.

Information duplication is possible many times over, and it is crucial to track the changes as they can result in losing access control.

Consider Integrations with Current Systems

Cloud storage works best when it interacts seamlessly with your current software stack. If network latency is too high, it puts a cap on the data integration workloads that can run. Many modern tools feature some cloud integration, but not all software packages play nicely with all cloud providers.

Accessibility in Disaster Situations

In a disaster scenario, companies require instantaneous access to their data or risk losing revenue and clients.  A service provider should deliver outlined time frames to recover from a disaster. 

Choose a Service That Is Easy to Use

A service that is complicated to implement/run consumes company time and resources. Consider the level of control rendered over the backups and the level of insights that the company will have on the service provider's performance.

In conclusion, companies that are more inclined to the productivity benefits of cloud migration should focus on connectivity speeds and third-party integrations. The transition to the cloud needs strategic approaches for businesses to set up internal protocols and policies to govern cloud data management. The key to benefiting from the cloud is choosing a partner with solutions that ease deployment and management of cloud infrastructure. 

How is your company's transition to cloud computing?

Let the experts at ASB Resources  guide you in selecting and implementing the right cloud computing and data storage services for your business. Schedule a call with one of our experts today!