Five major measures to avoid paying too much for cloud services

While cloud computing has many benefits for companies, such as increased flexibility, the main reason companies turn to cloud services is to help companies reduce it costs.

Earlier this year, a survey by IDG Enterprises showed that 71% of the agencies said they intended to increase the cost of cloud services in 2012, the main motivation being to save costs.

But that does not mean that turning applications to cloud services automatically reduces the cost of the company. Without appropriate measures, corporate organizations will find that their spending on cloud services is higher than originally planned.

To avoid paying too much for cloud services, here are five things that businesses must keep in mind.

1. Negotiation of a better contract

Although the contracts for cloud computing providers are usually friendly, recent university studies in London have found that companies are increasingly adept at consulting cloud-provider researchers to manage cloud clients and providers, and that many customers have been able to push the terms of the contract, These contract terms can reduce their costs or protect them from some of the risks associated with cloud services (downtime, security threats, and so on).

What the project company can usually negotiate is as follows:
• Remedial measures such as data loss and downtime
• Availability assurance for uptime
• Security and privacy protection
• Termination rights
• Prevent service changes without customer approval
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2. Centralized management of cloud supply

In a traditional computing environment, it can control spending more easily-or at least know how much money is spent on technology-related projects. In general, only IT staff can purchase and install devices and software.

But with the development of cloud services, the department itself can provide services without input from it. This means that a company can sign a lot of services and may sign a contract that is not in the right place because of the lack of proper knowledge. Companies should have a clear process that allows individuals or groups to oversee cloud rationing.

3. Streamline your cloud services

One of the biggest reasons cloud computing can help companies save money is that it can allow companies to spend on their own needs. For example, they can only pay for the storage they use, rather than spend more to pay for the storage they need to upgrade in the future.

However, analysts warn that many companies are still using the old method when contacting cloud services, and they will pay the cloud providers more than they need. Many companies are trying to find business expansion, but they never think their business could shrink one day. The advice of many experts is to start with a small range of services, until later when there is a need to increase, rather than at the beginning of the scope of the large.

4. Beware of hidden costs

Before agreeing to a contract with a cloud provider, it is important that the company fully understand the cost of the service, not just the basic subscription fee. For example, an enterprise should determine the costs to be charged by the vendor:

• Data transfer
• Backup
• Increase or decrease service levels
• Support and maintenance
• Customizing and configuring
• Terminate the contract.

Companies must be aware that they may have to spend a fraction of their money on internal upgrades before they move to the cloud. For example, some companies may find that they need additional bandwidth to support data transfer between mobile networks and external service providers.

5. Minimize-and interrupt plan

Security and reliability may be the most concern of the company in the process of using cloud services. After all, businesses are losing some of their money in reducing IT services, even in a short period of time.

This is why companies should pay close attention to the reliability of their services when evaluating cloud providers. Companies can avoid losing a lot of money from cloud failures to ensure that there are penalties in their service agreements, which can guarantee that the provider will be penalized if it fails to meet security conditions. Many companies also choose to avoid the full use of cloud services, especially when dealing with critical application tasks.

Conclusion

Although the eventual cost of cloud services may exceed the company's original plan, the total cost of ownership is often much lower than it used to be. Coupled with increased flexibility, increased speed and the benefits of other cloud services, cloud services are a good choice in many cases.

But in order to get the best deal and avoid paying more than they need the company must do the following work. When registering a service, choose the supplier wisely at the outset and ask questions wisely.