Selecting a CSP (Cloud Service Provider) can be a challenging task. A lot of thought and factors should be considered before selecting that CSP to run your IaaS and/or PaaS environments. If you don’t give a lot of thought before selecting that cloud provider you may find yourself in a much larger mess than when you started. Recently I have read some articles stating you should be utilizing at least two different CSP’s. Honestly I am not sure how I feel about that. In theory it sounds great especially if one CSP is having a major service outage. However, you are expecting your “Cloud Staff” to support two different CSP’s at an expert level plus architect the two to work together. If you don’t architect them to work together why did you select two CSP’s? You might consider a percentage application split or best fits, but is that really the right decision. What about your colo and/or on-premise DC? Are you planning to run your applications in a hybrid architecture design? Don’t take this lightly and think hey I have smart staff they can learn anything. Consider the level of knowledge one must know to support a single CSP. Below is a very small list of things to consider when you go to select that CSP. I hope you take the time to consider your options and what the business needs are before selecting.
Things to consider:
- How long have they been in business?
- Are they profitable?
- What does there support model look like?
- How difficult will it be to find talent?
- Do they have competitive services pricing?
- Review 1 and 2-year service outage reports
- Does the CSP have any reported security issues and/or breaches?
- Consider data portability and migrations in and out
- Does the CSP meet your data sensitivity classification certifications?
-Daren
Cloud Life 
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