tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22311364.post2940087696540110011..comments2009-08-27T19:45:17.337-07:00karlphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10854725002875547297noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22311364.post-8574412990653478852009-08-27T19:45:17.337-07:002009-08-27T19:45:17.337-07:00I think you just gave me a checklist to use as an asset for our partner base&#39;s collateral in selling cloud services ;)<br /><br />Most of these we already answer in the AUP/TOS contract paperwork that every provider signs and passes down to the client.<br /><br />Now with all due respect, I can tell you that most of the question list is sort of laughable and not something taken into consideration by most people that are outsourcing... because if they were true concerns everyone would have an in house IT department and entire books of processes and regulations - very few do and they aren&#39;t in SMB - but let&#39;s for the sake of the argument assume I&#39;m just dealing with people that self-select themselves into my business model:: The biggest question anyone should have is feature limitations - by giving up control you restrict your feature set. Can you live with that? Can you live without direct server access, Administrator privileges, migration control, upgrade control, etc. <br /><br />That in the nutshell is the #1 question we field: Once I turn this all to you, how much control do I get (answer: in a shared environment, none. But we&#39;ll gladly upgrade you to a dedicated solution that gives you full control and none of the headaches but it&#39;s going to cost you, ie: msp in the cloud)<br /><br />-VladVlad Mazekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05613073111629014683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22311364.post-78926976383320965682009-08-27T13:34:14.566-07:002009-08-27T13:34:14.566-07:00I think for businesses in the small to medium enterprise - the due diligence on closure etc is truly valid, I just got bitten by that; http://wp.me/paqed-LE<br /><br />As far as security goes - I would be willing to bet that &#39;Cloud&#39; providers are doing better at that than the average SME! <br /><br />In other words - as an SME business - Can you do better????<br /><br />The last point I have is for those of us outside of the US - you mention regulation - Now;<br /><br />If myself as a Canadian company doing business (hypothetical) with a Cuban Company with my data hosted in California ......<br /><br />Whose jurisdiction is that in?<br /><br />Canadian?<br />American?<br />Californian?<br /><br />Two trade law experts told me it could be all of the above!<br /><br />Best Regardselliotrosshttp://elliotross.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22311364.post-77734796046992203962009-08-27T09:29:27.533-07:002009-08-27T09:29:27.533-07:00Funny that these are there questions, I could think of a lot better questions?<br /><br />If they&#39;re down how will they keep you informed about what&#39;s going on and when things will be up?<br /><br />If we need data restored how long does it take? How much does a restore cost?<br /><br />How do we trully know if they&#39;re testing backup/restore procedures against our equipment and not just a &quot;general test&quot; against random equipment?<br /><br />If they go out of business, sell to another vendor who jacks our fees up over night how will you migrate our Exchange, SQL and SharePoint data?briwllshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00794492905478036064noreply@blogger.com