How to choose the best cloud hosting provider?

How to choose the best cloud hosting provider?

The current era is driven by technological advancements which are making our lives easier and more productive. There are some great technological innovations which have blessed our daily life, business functions, and various industries as well. And in this blog post, we will be talking about one such technological gift which is cloud computing.

Cloud computing has completely changed the way we used to work in the past. There are various implementations of cloud, like cloud storage, testing and development, big data analysis, but the most popular and used cloud computing model among them is the cloud hosting.

With the introduction of cloud hosting through cloud providers, small businesses were able to opt for the most advanced technological business solution even with a watertight budget. They just have to buy the software which they need to host and then purchase the cloud package from a hosting provider in order to migrate from the desktop installed software to the cloud platform, like in the case of QuickBooks cloud hosting.

best cloud hosting provider

Such a fruitful technological solution allowed small businesses to avail the advantages like anywhere, anytime access, high uptime, bank-level security, scalability, multi-user access, automatic backup, and updates, but all these benefits can be garnered only if the user chooses the right cloud hosting provider.

Choosing the best cloud hosting provider plays an important role in deciding your cloud experience. There are a lot of cloud hosting providers in the market, but different businesses have different cloud needs and therefore you should choose a cloud hosting provider according to your business size, industry, and specific needs.

There are various parameters on which you can judge a cloud hosting provider like security, pricing, reviews from customers, customer service, etc. So instead of going with the idea of “One size fits all”, you should choose the cloud provider after a thorough research of the market and analyzing your needs.

So let’s take a look at some of the parameters on which you can differentiate a good cloud hosting provider from a bad cloud hosting provider and then choose the most appropriate one for your business.

1. Security

One of the biggest concerns for users while shifting to the cloud is security. When you shift to the cloud platform, you agree to share very sensitive and important business data on the public cloud platform and therefore, you should never overlook the security measures adopted by the cloud hosting provider which you are going to choose.

You can check for encrypted data, anti-virus, firewall, anti-malware, regular monitoring of the cloud server and physical system while analyzing the level of security adopted by a cloud hosting provider. This will help you to get an overview of how serious your cloud provider is regarding the security of their cloud server.

2. Scalability

Small businesses have very fluctuating needs as they are on the way to growth and therefore, they need scalable solutions which can be adjusted according to the changing business needs. You should always look for a hosting provider which can offer scalable cloud solutions so that you can either scale up or scale down your cloud needs as per the morphing market and business demands.

There should be no involvement of any type of contract in your cloud package so that you can also opt out of their cloud services whenever you want.  This will come to aid when you find out that your chosen hosting provider is not able to fulfill your cloud expectations. In such situations, instead of worrying about the breach of contract, you will be easily able to stop their cloud service at any point of time.

3. Technical support

While availing an IT service, you should never ignore the quality of technical support offered by your chosen provider and same goes for cloud hosting services. Look for a cloud hosting provider who offers round the clock customer support through a dedicated team of IT experts because issues can pop at any time while dealing with IT solutions.

You can also check how good and quick they are at solving problems and answering queries because offloading IT hassle to the third party hosting provider is one of the biggest advantages of choosing the cloud platform and if you are not able to capitalize on it then there is no benefit of making the big move.

4. Customer reviews

You should never miss out on checking the customer reviews of the company because it is one of the most genuine ways to get an overview of your cloud hosting provider. There are various websites where original users submit reviews of different companies including the hosting providers.

You can go a step further and even contact some of the customers in order to get a glimpse about the quality of cloud service being offered by the cloud hosting provider.

5. Backup and disaster recovery

Another big advantage of shifting to the cloud is automatic backup and strong disaster recovery plan. After shifting to the cloud platform, you don’t need to take the headache of creating manual backups as your hosting provider offers automatic backup for all your important data. So before coming to the final decision, make sure that the cloud hosting provider is offering automatic backup.

You should also check that whether a strong disaster recovery plan is listed in the features of the cloud provider or not because it will help you to overcome a catastrophe while avoiding complete data loss.

With great power come great responsibilities and the same goes for you while choosing a cloud hosting provider. With many options in the market, choosing the most appropriate hosting provider depends solely on you. By judging the available options of cloud hosting providers on the above-mentioned parameters, you can easily filter your search and then create a pool of some best hosting providers in the market. Following a systematic process while making the final decision will not only allow you to harness the benefits of the cloud, but it will also allow you to remain economical even while choosing the most advanced technological solution.

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