There are currently in excess of 40 cloud providers offering IAAS, PAAS, SAAS services in South Africa, These range from the hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Huawei) bringing their international services to the continent, to smaller niche players catering to different segments of the market with specialised solutions. Even within the hyperscalers, who have developed a myriad of offerings, there are strengths and weaknesses to each of their specific services. The right decision is always a combination of an in-depth analysis of your specific business requirements and establishing your minimum expectations and overlaying them onto the offerings of the various providers to assess their suitability in terms of features, pricing, reputation, security and other factors to assess fit.

Some things to consider when making your selection:

Technologies and Support

Does the target cloud provider have a wide array of offerings and continually invest in bringing new products to market? You may not require those services now, but may in future as your requirements grow. Do they support your current software and licensing models? Do they have local support that’s responsive? Are their product offerings relevant?

Reliability and Performance

How reliable is the target platform and does it have built in resilience? Even the hyperscalers experience outages or capacity constraints from time to time. Have you planned for this? Where is the service based, and is it close enough to your user base?

Security 

How secure is the target platform, does it support the right levels of encryption and user access that you require?

Company Profile

Does the target cloud provider have a track record of delivery. Do they have the critical mass to allow you take advantage of economies of scale? 

Governance

Does the target cloud provider have a local offering and comply with local data sovereignty regulations?

Costs

How sensitive is the target cloud provider to currency fluctuations? Do they charge you to enter or exit their cloud? Is their price reasonable for the service that they are offering?

CONCLUSION

Every company’s needs are unique. A vast array of cloud providers offer a wide variety of services and this list is continually changing. You need a partner who can help provide clarity. If you need further advice on choosing a cloud provider – get in touch.

Download the checklist

5 things to consider when choosing a cloud provider for your business.