There are many different factors to consider when choosing a cloud hosting provider but by focusing on the most important ones, you can simplify your task and ensure that you make the right choice. Use the suggestions in this guide to help you home in on the Australian cloud hosting providers that are capable of meeting all of your needs.
How to make sure you choose the best cloud hosting provider
The factors in this list are those we believe you should pay most attention to when you are evaluating cloud hosting providers in Australia, or anywhere else for that matter. While every organisation’s needs may be different, the importance of these factors remains a constant for almost all types of organisations, including businesses, non-profits, charities and government agencies.
- Data centre locations — The best locations will depend on your specific requirements but whatever they happen to be, this is a very important factor to consider. If, for example, you need lightning-fast page loading speeds in Australia, you should choose a cloud host that maintains one or more data centres here.
- Design, development, testing and deployment tools — Some cloud hosts provide basic hosting services whilst others offer enterprise-grade packages that include many useful tools and features. Hosts that provide you with tools to facilitate the rapid design, development, testing and deployment of new sites, pages and online apps will make life much easier for your web team.
- Computing resources — If your website only contains static web pages, with no dynamic content, this may not be such an important consideration. However, for most types of websites built by private and public sector organisations today, the availability of adequate computing resources is a critical factor. Most importantly, your host should make it easy for you to scale these resources up or down at any time.
- Storage facilities — Your website may need to access a vast amount of data on a daily basis or it may only need a few gigabytes to perform the functions for which it was designed. In either case, you should ensure that the cloud hosting provider you work with is able to offer cost-effective, high-performance data storage facilities that meet all your requirements.
- Data security — The importance of data security cannot be overstressed, particularly for government agencies that hold a lot of sensitive personal information. Make sure that your cloud host meets the highest industry standards in this area.
- Customer support — Easy access to a professional customer support team is essential for all types of organisations that use cloud hosting services. Whether you encounter technical issues that you cannot solve or billing issues that require immediate attention, an efficient customer support service will help to ensure these issues are dealt with promptly and effectively.
Cloud hosting providers that score highly in all of the above areas should easily be able to meet your requirements and should also be able to ensure a trouble-free experience from the moment that you start using their services.