2012 starting a-cloud-service-practice

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE CHANNEL PARTNERS CONFERENCE & EXPO

Channel Partners
Vol. 2, Issue 10, OCT 2012 | $5.99 US
channelpartnersonline.com
CLOUD COMPUTING
A SPECIAL ALL-DIGITAL,GREEN ISSUE
TM

Choosing
Suppliers + Models

IN THIS ISSUE:
DEFINING CLOUD CHANNEL BUSINESS MODELS 6
DIFFERENTIATING CLOUD PROVIDERS 11
VETTING A CLOUD PROVIDER 15
5 TIPS FOR FINDING THE RIGHT CLOUD PROVIDER 25
5 SIGNS YOU’VE CHOSEN THE WRONG CLOUD PROVIDER 30

CONTENTS
IT

™

M
T ELEC O

OCT 2012
channelpartnersonline.com

5
11

15 30

OPINION 15 Vetting a Cloud Provider
4 Editor’s Letter: Advantageous By Jo Peterson & Manon Buettner
Finding a cloud provider is easy. Finding the
Liaisons: Providers & Peers
right provider is hard. This article outlines key
By Khali Henderson
considerations and suggests questions to help
A first step to success in the cloud is aligning
define your client’s requirements and recognize
yourself with the right providers, but keep in
| channelpartnersonline.com

provider differentiators — both strengths
mind that strategic partnerships in the cloud may
and shortcomings — so you can help your
extend beyond providers to peers that can bring
clients reap the benefits of cloud services.
complementary skills and supplier relationships.

25 5 Tips for Finding the Right
FEATURES Cloud Provider
6 Defining Cloud Channel Business Models By Dina Moskowitz
CHANNEL PARTNERS DIGITAL ISSUE  CLOUD COMPUTING OCT 2012

By Rauline Ochs Smart vendor selection will turn into more reliable
Solution providers, resellers, managed service long-term recurring revenue. However, there is
providers and others that aggregate, integrate or no question that it can be a daunting task unless
customize typically do so under the cloud services you tackle it with structure and method. This
broker label. This article offers some definitions and article offers a few suggestions for successful
examples of the variations on the broker model. and profitable cloud provider selection.

11 Differentiating Cloud Providers 30 5 Signs You’ve Chosen
By Lawrence M. Walsh the Wrong Cloud Provider
If partnership is the key to cloud channel By Scott Kinka
success, understanding the types of providers Picking the right partner is easier said than
and their roles is essential. This article defines done. And when it comes to the cloud, it’s
the essential cloud players that channel partners hard to tell one provider from the next. But
can both align with and compete against. here are five things you must understand to
separate the right choice from the wrong one.

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ADVANTAGEOUS LIAISONS:
EDITOR'S LETTER

PROVIDERS & PEERS

I
just got an email from the Agent Alliance. You probably read it too. It was a blog
from the consortium’s CEO Bill Power about channel partners’ — specifically
telecom agents’ — struggle with delivering cloud services.
He writes: “They freely admit they’re significantly behind the power curve and are
scrambling to catch up to their customers’ interests and demands.”
A recent report from Techaisle confirms that a higher percentage of small and medium
businesses are asking for cloud services than there are channel partners offering them.
So what does an agent do about this? That’s the question Power asks in his blog.
“The solution that I hear regularly posed is to rush out and add multiple cloud providers
to your portfolio. But how in the world do we determine which providers to add?”
That’s what this digital issue is all about — helping channel partners to align yourself
with the right providers and to help you find your role in the value chain. We have
included definitions about channel cloud business models and potential provider types
as well checklists on what to look for in a supplier.
Of course this is just a starting place for building your cloud practice. As for Power,
the conclusion he and his colleagues at the Agent Alliance have reached is that
strategic partnerships in the cloud may extend beyond providers to peers that can bring
complementary skills and supplier relationships.
Channel Partners agrees with this approach and has been working to facilitate those
connections through its Peer-to-Peer Networking and Agent-VAR Partnering initiatives.
Both are excellent opportunities to meet with potential allies in the cloud.

As always, we would welcome your feedback
on the content and the digital issue experience.
You can contact me at khenderson@vpico.com or MORE INFO////
on Twitter.
RESEARCH
Enjoy!
SMBs Demand More Cloud,
Mobility Than Channel Supplies

Partnering Trends Between
Telecom and IT Channels 2012
Khali Henderson
IMMERSION CENTER
Editor-in-Chief
@khalihenderson Peer-to-Peer Networking
Immersion Center
SOURCES:
Agent Alliance
Techaisle

// IN THIS ISSUE //////////
Table of Contents p. 2 ■ Defining Cloud Channel Business Models p. 6
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CLOUD
Defining

CA NL
HN E Business Models
///By Rauline Ochs

A 2012 IPED end-customer sur vey highlighted 43
percent of end-user customer respondents indicated a

desire to manage the new and emerging telephony and IT
computing environment themselves, specifically without
the assistance of a cloud services broker. Fifty-seven
percent of respondents indicated the cloud services broker
role as important especially when three or more cloud
services are being consumed or integrated for use by the

end customer.
The term cloud services broker was introduced by
technology research firm Gartner Inc. and is now widely
used in the industry. Is it used correctly in the industry?
Typically, yes, because the term, cloud services broker, is
broad. The cloud services broker role encompasses a wide
range of capabilities and services reflecting the complexity
of today’s telephony and IT computing environments.
Solution providers, resellers, managed service providers
(MSPs) and others that aggregate, integrate or customize
typically do so under the cloud services broker label. Let’s
look at some examples:
Editor’s Letter p. 4 ■ Differentiating Cloud Providers p. 11 ■ Table of Contents p. 2
6

ACS Services, founded in 1987 as an IT VAR is now also
CLOUD a telephony VAR and an MSP as a result of the acquisition
of Idwellings. ACS Services also has the capability to perform
INTEGRATOR the role of a cloud services broker for its customers following
a significant effort to transform its business over time. ACS
Services’ customer offerings are built on server, storage,
networking, voice, data, unified communications and white-labeled cloud
services to meet customer needs. These include server hosting and patch
management, backup disaster recovery (BDR), help desk support, website
design, voice, data and VoIP services integrated and customized on a
customer-specific service level.
ACS vendor partners include: Verizon, Cisco, HP, Dell, EMC, Juniper,
Fortinet, Citrix and the Infotech BDR cloud service which they offered
initially before hosting BDR in their own data center.
ACS integrates the component products through an overall service
level agreement taking the integration and management burden from
the customer as the broker of the cloud services. This example involves
managed and “white-labeled” public cloud services. The integration
component also applies to VARs or MSPs that may stand up private clouds,
behind the client firewall as well.

Cloud Sherpas, a specialist in mail, collaboration and CRM
CLOUD applications, is an example of a cloud services broker that
can offer data or mail migration then integrate and customize
CUSTOMIZER the application environment on a Google Apps sof tware
cloud services platform for the customer, taking the technical
integration burden from the customer. Similarly, Bluewolf not
only offers migration offerings to Salesforce.com with their own intellectual

proper ty (IP) developed for that purpose, but also implementation
customization performed with and as an extension to Salesforce.com.
Both Cloud Sherpas and Bluewolf are examples of a new generation
of solution providers tagged as “born in the cloud” or “cloud pure-plays”
because the business model was built around cloud services application
integration or in some cases cloud services resale. The “born in the cloud”
or “cloud pure-play” company typically did not transform from a legacy VAR,

solution provider, MSP, reseller or other related IT or telephony business.
These companies were not in business 20 years ago; they developed around
the cloud services ecosystem.

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There is a third capability that qualifies one as a cloud
CLOUD services broker. This is the aggregator capability. I have most
often observed the aggregation capability when offered by IT
AGGREGATOR distributors or select telephony master agents.
Synnex, Ingram Micro and Arrow are examples of distributors
who are aggregating cloud services and the necessary processes
to assist VARs, MSPs and others to successfully transition from pure on-premises,
project-based, resale to service level agreement based recurring revenue.
Synnex’s CLOUDSolv offers not only access to SaaS and IaaS public cloud
offerings to VARs for resale, but also aggregates those cloud services with the
provisioning portal on behalf of the cloud service provider, customer billing
processes and accounting systems that understand recurring revenue. In some
cases, the aggregator is able to jointly brand the service level administration to
the end customer on behalf of the VAR. This aggregation of not only the cloud
services, but also the necessary processes and systems enables VARs to offer
the solution without building the systems, expertise and capabilities themselves.
A telephony-IT cloud example of a similar aggregation of sales support,
pricing and provisioning for the actual hosted or cloud-based telephony or
IT-based solutions is offered by the CSC division of Intelisys, the master agent.
What is unique about this aggregated set of solutions for telephony and IT VARs
and MSPs is that it is the only one of which I am aware today that aggregates
cloud-based telephony (voice, data, unified communications) and IT (virtual
desktop infrastructure (VDI), BDR, IaaS, SaaS, etc.) for a true end-to-end set of
telephony and cloud-based offerings to support the model demonstrated by ASC
Systems and their willingness to cross sell telephony and IT to the end customer.

As you consider your company’s path forward in the new cloud ecosystem,
your integration, customization or aggregation capabilities are the critical value-
add to your end customers, especially when more than three cloud services
are consumed. Equally important is your choice of service provider with whom

to team.

Rauline Ochs is a member
of the IPED channel research,
consulting and training arm of MORE INFO////
UBM C h a n n e l th e p u b l is h e r
ARTICLES

of C o m p ute r R e s e l l e r N ews
Cloud Driving Need
(CRN). Prior to IPED, she served
for Multidimensional Channels
as Oracle’s senior vice president, Nor th
American alliances and channels and senior The Rise of the
vice president of worldwide alliances for Cloud Integrator
BEA Systems. Ochs began her career with BLOG
15 years at the IBM Corp., ultimately rising Everyone Wants a
to vice president, Americas software chan- Piece of the Cloud
nel sales and marketing. She was named
SOURCES
CRN Channel Executive of the Year 2007,
IPED
top Channel Executives and Most Influential
Women in the Channel 2005 through 2007. Gartner Inc.
9

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Differentiating
Cloud
Providers ///By Lawrence M. Walsh

E
nterprises already are spending as much as one-third of
their IT budgets on cloud computing products and ser-
vices, according to IDC enterprise research. Better yet,
cloud’s proportion of business IT budgets is increasing 15

percent year over year and will continue to do so for the next three to
five years. At this rate, cloud will make up more than 50 percent of the
average business IT budget by 2015.
The channel is increasingly incorporating cloud computing prod-
ucts and services as part of their portfolios. Software-, infrastructure-
and platform-as-a-service are already part of the channel partner’s
repertoire. So, too, is the data center virtualized as a private cloud,

hosted virtual servers and managed applications.
Yet, according to the Cloud & Technology Transformation Alliance, a
joint research venture by The 2112 Group and Channel Partners, most
channel partners earn less than 10 percent of their gross revenue
and profit from the sale and support of cloud computing. Finding
the right sales and technical talent to operate a cloud business, and
understanding and transforming a channel partner business to cloud
parameters are the chief obstacles to cloud success. However, these
are just indicative of the larger problem facing channel partners: the
inability to do everything cloud demands.

Defining Cloud Channel Business Models p. 6 ■ Vetting a Cloud Provider p. 15 ■ Table of Contents p. 2
11

Cloud computing may be economical for a consumer, but it is expensive to
deliver. To provide a full-blown cloud solution, a channel partner would have to
build a data center, acquire software licenses, integrate management and billing
applications, hire and train staff, and maintain non-revenue-producing capacity.
To enter the cloud, channel partners must team with cloud providers, software
vendors and service providers to gain access to resources and expertise.
If partnership is the key to cloud channel success, understanding the types
of providers and their roles is essential. The following are the essential cloud
players that channel partners can both align with and compete against.
Cloud Provider: This is a mash-up category of traditional software vendors
and born-in-the-cloud service providers. The cloud provider is typically the
originator of a cloud service, operating infrastructure, applications and cus-
tomer support in one package. Companies such as Microsoft Corp. (Office
365), Google (Google Apps) and Salesforce.com Inc. make up this category.
According to analyst reports, more than 70 percent of new applications writ-
ten by traditional software vendors are cloud-only, mean-
ing they will no longer have a client-side equivalent.
Cloud Aggregator: Cloud aggregators are bundlers — Understanding
or, a more apt description, distributors of cloud services
and hosting capacities. Many cloud aggregators special-
the different
ize in common productivity, security and utility applica-
tions. They provide user interfaces and management tools
cloud players is
that make the resale and support of cloud-based applica-
tions and resources easier for channel partners.
the first step in
Cloud ISVs: This emerging cloud category is little more building better
than the evolution of the independent software vendor
and application developer. In the past, ISVs wrote appli- cloud offerings.
cations that would complement and enhance the software
of major vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle Corp.

Today, ISVs are discovering that cloud computing is a tre-
mendous distribution mechanism, and their wares can be
customized to provide specialty capabilities for cloud ser-
vices. Many ISVs work through conventional vendor chan-
nels to bring their wares to partners. However, many are also building inde-
pendent channel relationships.

Hosting/Colocation Provider: Hosting companies are data centers that
provide resellers and end users with shared resources as an alternative to
selling and supporting on-premises servers and storage. Hosting companies
typically provide servers (shared or dedicated) and the underlying operating
system, while channel partners and/or their customers provide the software
for different uses and workloads. Increasingly, hosting providers are extending
management services for their servers and, in some instances, select applica-
tions.
Telecom Carriers: Until recently, connectivity and data transport services
that support other cloud services have been the role of traditional telephony
carriers in cloud computing. Now, major and regional carriers have invested

12

Better
Cloud
computing.

Mobility.

Security.

Get the story at
juniper.net

in the development of cloud services. Verizon bought Terremark for its host-
ing capacity, while AT&T is developing storage, email and platform services.
Sprint has extensive enterprise security services, many of which are being
sold through reseller agents or syndication partners.
IT Distributors: Distribution’s traditional role is to “pick, box and ship”
services for hardware and software products. Broadline and specialty dis-
tributors provide cloud product and service support to their channel part-
ners. Through distribution cloud services programs such as those offered by
Ingram Micro Inc., Tech Data Corp., Synnex Corp. and Avnet Inc., channel
partners have access to expert support and resources, training, reference
architectures and hosting capacity. Distributors are also bridging relation-
ships between cloud providers and resellers.
Hardware Vendors: The cloud still requires hardware as the platform
for connectivity and application hosting. Hardware vendors such as Cisco
Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Dell Inc. are providing
more than the metal backbone of cloud services; they recognize their future
sales are contingent on cloud providers growing. Through marketing and
technical support, hardware vendors are helping cloud providers grow sales.
In turn, they expect cloud providers to purchase more hardware to expand
their service capacity.
Cloud Integrators: Not all clouds are public or hosted, particularly in the
enterprise. In fact, the fastest growing cloud segment is enterprise private
clouds, and such infrastructure is developed and supported by system inte-
grators that previously sold high-end appliances and deployed professional
services. Many system integrators have redeployed resources to work with
vendors and other channel partners in the development of private clouds for
their clients.

There are numerous other cloud providers, but these are the essential actors

in the pantheon. Channel partners are forming different combinations of cloud
relationships to build complete portfolios of cloud products and services. Such
relationships are essential given the current state of cloud
sales. According to CTTA research, 65 percent of channel
partners say they are or suspect they are losing sales
opportunities because they cannot provide the cloud
MORE INFO////
services desired by their customers. Understanding the RESEARCH

different cloud players is the first step in building better Telcos, MSOs, ‘Hosters’ to Get
cloud offerings. Half of U.S. SMB Cloud Spend
CTTA State of the Cloud
Channel Report
Lawrence M. Walsh is president and CEO
of The 2112 Group, a channel services com- SOURCES
pany, and editor-in-chief of Channelnomics, a Cloud & Technology
blog on channel business models and trends. Transformation Alliance
He also is executive director of the Cloud & The 2112 Group
Technology Transformation Alliance. You can reach him at
Channelnomics
lmwalsh@the2112group.com.
IDC
14

///By Jo Peterson & Manon Buettner

t The decision to move a client’s IT infrastructure to

“The Cloud” should be based on strategic business
rationale, and the ensuing process is not to be taken
lightly. After all, choosing the right cloud service pro-
vider is not only critical for the success of your client’s
cloud strategy, it will most likely affect his/her busi-
ness. Finding a cloud provider is easy, with myriad
providers beckoning. The question to ask yourself

is: Am I truly prepared and educated enough to help
guide my client through finding the right provider and
migrating to cloud?
Understanding cloud is like learning a new lan-
guage. Fluency comes not with book learning but
with actual use and practice. To be successful, one
must invest time and energy to learn the underlying
technologies, grow relationships with cloud provid-
ers and prepare to have strategic discussions with IT
executives about their business drivers.

Differentiating Cloud Providers p. 11 ■ 5 Tips for Finding Right Cloud Provider p. 25 ■ Table of Contents p. 2
15

Be A Leader
In Cloud.
Become A Part
Of CTTA Today.

The Cloud and Technology Transformation Alliance (CTTA) – formerly
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Technology is moving fast. Sometimes too fast. That’s where CTTA comes in to play.
Through forums and research, CTTA provides the community with perspective and
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IT
CTTA is
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™

T ELEC O

In this article, we will offer background and questions to help
define your client’s requirements and recognize provider differen-
tiators — both strengths and shortcomings — so you can begin to
help your clients reap the benefits cloud can offer.

NOT ALL CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDERS
ARE CREATED EQUAL.
In 2002, Amazon Web Services was launched offering a suite
of cloud-based services including storage, computation and even
human intelligence through the Amazon Mechanical Turk. It wasn’t
until 2006, with the launch of their Elastic Compute Cloud EC2, that
“utility computing” became a recognized term defined as a com-
mercial service that allows small companies and individuals to rent
computers on which to run their own computer applications. Hosting
providers such as Savvis, SoftLayer and Rackspace also were
among the first to offer what’s now considered cloud computing.
Fast forward to 2012 and there are more providers than you
can name. New entrants to the market are surfacing rapidly. Some
cloud providers are able to integrate a full suite of data center, IT,
security and network services into a total solution set uniquely
tailored to your client’s immediate and long-term cloud vision.
Others are focused on the mass market and emphasize self-
service, portal-driven products predominantly relevant to
startups and developers. Most, however, provide only
subsets of a total solution, requiring a cobbling together
of third-party services from entities that you either don’t
know or with whom you don’t have an established working
relationship.
As a valued adviser to your client, you want to help
guide them toward the most relevant solutions for
their particular situation. Therefore, it is crucial to

begin by fully evaluating and defining the refer-
ence architecture, technical and performance
indicators, and underlying business drivers that
are supporting their migration to cloud.
While traditional telcos may offer infrastructure-
as-a-service (IaaS), either organically or through cloud provider

acquisitions, they may not be the most mature players in this
space. The biggest pitfall of limiting your search to providers
currently in your portfolio is that, with few exceptions, these will
include the larger, established, traditional network service pro-
viders that have only recently adopted IaaS as a set of adjunct or
tertiary services.
With few exceptions, the Iaas solutions offered by carriers today
are much less mature, have fewer features and functions, and require
more manual intervention for setup and changes. So, while it is less
work to focus exclusively on your bench of incumbent carriers to
find options, you’ll be doing your client a great disservice by forcing
them to fit into what will likely be an immature or restrictive solution.
Therefore, hosting and cloud services may not be these companies’
17

core competency. (CenturyLink’s acquisition or environments need to be moved and the
of Savvis and Verizon Wireless acquiring Ter- business drivers for moving them. Only then
remark are two notable exceptions.) Your best can you can begin the search for the right
bet is to find firms that have invested signifi- cloud provider.
cant time, money and personnel to convince
the market that they are committed to cloud EVALUATING A PROVIDER
computing and your client’s positive experi- Armed with the client requirements, you
ence. If this set of products is not fully baked can begin searching for the right cloud service
(or clearly explained) on the front end, chances provider. When vetting a cloud provider, focus
are, it won’t be baked on the back end either. a few key areas:
• Performance/Architecture and Tech-
nical Considerations
• Security
• Service/Support
• Pricing
Understanding cloud is like Performance/Architecture and Tech-
learning a new language. nical Considerations. From a performance
Fluency comes not with and technical considerations standpoint,
book learning but with you’ll want to understand how long the
provider has been in the IT outsourcing
actual use and practice.
business and if the provider has the finan-
cial resources to continue to deliver and
upgrade services throughout the business
life cycle.
Business is global; is your provider? Does
START WITH THE the service provider offer the seamless global
RESULTS IN MIND footprint your client’s business needs to grow?
It is crucial that you understand what the Can the data and environment be easily repli-
client is trying to accomplish from a business cated globally? Will you be able to manage the
standpoint before having an effective cloud

infrastructure transparently, regardless of time
conversation. In other words, what needs or location?
aren’t addressed in the client’s current envi- As you search for a cloud provider, it is
ronment that is driving the pursuit of a cloud critical to understand how well your client’s
solution? If the client doesn’t have a clear application will perform after it’s moved to
picture of what his/her real needs are, you the cloud. You’ll want to assure that your cli-
won’t have one either. ent’s application will perform as well as users

True IaaS is can be as simple as spinning expect, now and in the future. Here are a few
up some compute instances for a test and questions to ask:
development environment, but it also can be • Is the cloud service provider using current
as complex as moving an e-tailer’s production generation enterprise-grade hardware to host
infrastructure into a hybrid colocation/cloud my client’s data?
environment involving a phased migration • Will the provider reveal the names of the
strategy and complex design. hardware vendors it utilizes to provide the
So, it’s important to define the requirements service? (Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, VMware,
first. Many clients are taking a hybrid approach Microsoft, etc.)
to cloud services. Before searching for the right • Is the provider committed to keeping up
cloud service provider for eager clients, it’s with the rapid pace of technology changes
important to understand which applications thought the life cycle of the business?

18

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• Ethernet vs. T1 Comparison Sheet
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Quality of Service with VoIP Quality of Service with VoIP

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Dedicated DSL/speed will not fluctuate Speed will not fluctuate

T1 voice and data line is a form of Internet Fast Ethernet is the cabling used in LAN
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• Choosing Ethernet Services
T1 lines offer 1.5 Mbps per line. Each Where available, Business Ethernet often Ethernet, where available,
additional line bonded to the original line offers both higher bandwidths and lower offers both higher bandwidths
increases the speed by 1.5 Mbps; for prices, partially due to the efficiency of the and lower prices
example, a double-bonded solution is technology involved in transmitting higher
3 Mbps. Bonding is practical up to bandwidths over common copper wiring.
10–12 Mbps; above that, other solutions—
such as DS3 or Ethernet—are often more

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• Does the provider offer a range of services that can be mixed
and matched to best fit the requirements of all my client’s cloud-
based applications?
• Can the provider integrate hybrid solutions requiring connectiv-
ity between my client’s private data center, colocation, managed
hosting and cloud?
• Does the provider offer a range of connectivity offerings, from
general Internet access to high-speed secure private networking?
Is the connectivity provided directly from the provider or sourced
via third party? Does the provider manage this connectivity? Is
there a service level agreement (SLA) for the connectivity? How
is that connectivity integrated into the cloud solution?
• Which hypervisor does the provider use? This is important
because there is no standard hypervisor. Most companies lever-
age VMware ESX, but does the provider? Understanding this can
help scope whether or not you can import and the virtual
machines your client already has.
• Can the provider support the VM specifications your
client needs? This will help define whether your cli-
ent’s app is able to run properly.
• How many CPUs, GB of RAM or disk can a
single VM have? Can your client leverage the
same host names, IP and MAC addresses the
company uses internally?
• How many VM modules are to be used?
Security Considerations. Security, especially as it relates
to public cloud offerings, is a popular concern when moving mis-
sion-critical data to the cloud. But don’t rule out public cloud com-
pletely until you understand how prospective providers handle this
area. Be sure to understand how the data is secured by asking the

following questions:
• Does the provider offer a secure environment, both physically
(data center) and logically? How secure is this environment?
• Does the provider maintain a “defense-in-depth” solution that
meets all my client’s internal security requirements?
• Is the security built into the product offering, or is it something
you and your client will have to design and bolt onto the solution?

• Is the security provided by and supported by a professional internal
organization? Does it require the involvement of a third party?
• Can the security provided be customized and adopted to meet
requirements unique to my client’s enterprise?
• Does the provider meet all of the various business and regulatory
compliance that the enterprise is legally required to implement?
• Can the provider document its compliance/security processes
and procedures?
• Can I be confident that the security measures the cloud service
provider offers are as stringent as the ones implemented within
my client’s own data centers?

20

• Can the service provider tell you
with certainty where the business
critical data your client shares with
them will reside? If not, is it certain it
is secure?
Service & Support Consider-
ations. At this early stage in cloud Application portability and access
adoption, most service level agree- to technical resources will be
ments (SLAs) are one-sided in favor paramount to offer assurance that
of the provider. This limits their lia- future needs will be addressed.
bility in an emerging market and
allows them to offer the most aggres-
sive price points. While studies
have proven that higher SLAs don’t
equate to higher uptime, you should
• Is the cloud ser vice provider’s
eliminate those who aren’t standing pricing clear and understandable?
behind their service. Here are some • What is included and excluded from
questions to ask: the solution’s pricing?
• Does the provider offer compre- • Is support built into the pricing
hensive and documented SLAs? model, or is it a premium on top of
• Is there a clear and concise escala- the standard pricing?
tion path? • Are essential components missing
• Are the SLAs applicable immedi- that require third party plug-ins?
ately or after some arbitrary time has • Does the pricing deliver and satisfy
elapsed? the value I expect to realize from my
• Are there exceptions during mainte- client’s cloud strategy? (Low pricing
nance windows? does not equate to high value if all
• Are they clear and easy to other requirements are not fully
understand? satisfied.)

• How easily are they enforced? • Can I view my client’s company
From a support perspective, ask spend throughout the month?
whether the service provider offers • Can I control who has access to
the following: utilize the cloud services?
• local onsite team of cloud experts? • Can spending and spending con-
• a clear and concise escalation trols be implemented on a depart-
path? mental or individual basis?

• a global view of a client’s entire • Does the cloud provider offer and
cloud solution? suppor t an API to inte grate the
• a single neck to choke from a service into my client’s operational
support perspective? model?
• real-time trouble tickets? • Does the cloud provider of fer
reporting that truly helps run my cli-
Pricing Considerat ions. The ent’s business more efficiently?
most obvious reason to have the • How will this pricing model scale as
solution defined prior to soliciting my client grows?
pricing is to ensure the proposals • Does this pricing favor my client’s
reflect the exact specifications and compute and storage usage/
costs to facilitate the comparison. utilization?

21

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