Cloudware Operations and Management - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 382

18.5 Selection Criteria for Service Provider(s)
Planning for the involvement of a cloud service provider as part of the cloud
strategy is necessary and important for an enterprise when there is a need
for using more than one cloud service providers.
There are a number of generic criteria for the selection of a cloud service
provider. The criteria are given as follows:
• Cost / price : This is one of the main deciding factors for the users
of the service. This should include all the components of the cost,
including one-time and ongoing costs. The transparency of the costs
is also important to ensure that there are no hidden costs and so is
the review of the historical price trend to see how the cost of services
has changed in the past.
• Viability and reputation of the provider : Since this is a nascent field and
the users build their business processes based on the services pro-
vided by the cloud service provider, it is very important to look at
the reputation of the cloud service provider and assess their refer-
ences, the number of successful projects delivered, and the duration
of time for which they have been in business. It is also important to
assess the long-term stability of the provider's business.
• Security and privacy : Security provision as a value addition is one of
the reasons for using the cloud service providers in the first place. It
is important to ensure that the service providers provide an end-to-
end security (including physical, application, and personnel related)
for the services they provide. Equally important (also from the point
of view of regulatory requirements fulfillment) is the review of how
a service provider manages privacy identity and access management,
and single sign-on feature provision is important. It is important
that the service provider provides details of security certifications
that their services may fulfill.
• Regulatory requirements fulfillment: : Depending on the domain, the
cloud users have to fulfill varied requirements (say, audit trail provi-
sion, logging, etc.). The cloud service provider on behalf of the user
must ensure that the compliance requirements are met.
• Transparency of operational information and data : It is necessary to get
the insight into the basic operational information and data related
to one's operation from the point of view of the cloud service user,
and the service provider that provides this information should be
preferred.
• Data management : Data are an important asset of the enterprise.
Functions related to data like data storage and backup, confidentiality