How to choose the right Cloud vendor?

Choosing a cloud vendor goes beyond simply selecting the best-known name or the cheapest option. Organisations need to start thinking about their specific needs and longer-term goals. An incorrect choice can lead to security, cost control and performance issues. A good cloud vendor should not only match your organization's current needs, but also be flexible enough to grow with future developments. Choosing the right cloud vendor for your specific need means benefits in terms of innovation and cost. In addition, cloud implementations are large, far-reaching and often costly projects, so naturally you would prefer to choose the most suitable cloud supplier right away.

To make a good choice, there are a number of different factors. We will briefly mention the most important ones:  

1. Cultural fit: You prefer to choose a provider that fits you. Your IT team is perhaps more oriented towards application development, or towards classic office automation. Your control organization is used to working with fixed contacts, picking up the phone, and speaking directly to the right person. Your team already has certifications from certain vendors, etc. Can it be a big behemoth, or is personal contact and advice from a small player desirable?  
2. Purpose: For what purpose are you going to the Cloud? Is it cost savings, efficiency, knowledge and experience among the IT team, or avoiding large investments in old legacy environments? There are plenty of good reasons to move to the Cloud. Have your goals clear and prioritise each one. This will help when choosing a specific cloud provider. 
3. Workload: What exactly are you going to run in the cloud? Can and is it allowed? Are there specific certifications or requirements for your industry in terms of information security and personal data, etc.? If you know what kind of workloads or applications you want to run in the cloud, you can choose the cloud provider with the offering that best suits it.  
4. Legal Aspects: The location of data storage is a crucial issue in sectors such as healthcare and financial services, where strict regulations apply. Public clouds can store data in different countries, which can have legal implications. It also partly depends on how you set up the public cloud.  
5. Integration: With which cloud provider can you most easily securely connect and integrate with your current environment, enabling a migration or hybrid cloud solution. 
6. Functionality: Not every cloud provider offers the same functionality. SaaS solutions like Microsoft 365 may be perfect for office automation, while AWS is better suited for developers managing apps and web environments. Google Cloud, on the other hand, offers powerful data analytics tools, but is a niche player for some companies. There are also plenty of smaller cloud providers with good offerings. 
7. Sovereignty: An increasingly important factor is digital sovereignty. This is about the control an organization or country has over its own data and IT infrastructure. Especially for governments and companies in highly regulated sectors, such as healthcare or finance, this is a crucial consideration. The largest public cloud providers are based in the US and have their own rules on data access or disclosure. European organisations subject to the GDPR are therefore increasingly choosing European cloud providers or private cloud solutions to maintain maximum control over their data, comply with local laws and regulations, and prevent foreign (non-European) governments from being able to access sensitive information.  
8. Cost: Public clouds often adopt a pay-as-you-go model, which can be attractive for organisations with variable workloads. Nevertheless, costs can be higher in the long run, especially if there is no optimization of the cloud environment. 

Is there no single ideal provider for your specific situation? Or do you not want to depend on just one supplier? Then opt for a multi-cloud strategy. With a multi-cloud strategy, you work with multiple cloud suppliers, which offers flexibility and resilience. This helps avoid risks such as vendor lock-in and allows you to choose the best supplier for specific workloads. This approach can potentially increase management complexity, especially in terms of security and integration. On the other hand, keeping direction in a single-provider strategy is simpler in management and cost, but it can pose risks if the supplier does not sufficiently align with future needs or changes in your organization.

Choosing a cloud provider is an important strategic decision to make as an organization in a cloud transformation process. Whichever cloud provider you choose, it is still important to thoroughly evaluate what best suits your organization and team. By clearly defining what your goals are and making choices about key factors, you will ultimately find a cloud provider that best suits your organization.

If you want to know more about how to choose the best cloud provider for you, need help with the choices or trade-offs to be made, or simply want to know more about how Cloud Transformation can make a difference to your organisation. Then feel free to contact loran.vandendungen@highberg.com or mathijs.dubbe@highberg.com.

If you want more information on cloud transformation in general, read our whitepaper too!