Do not — I say again, do not give your Cloud service-level agreement (SLA) short shrift. Your Cloud SLA is how you make sure you get what you want and pay only for what you get.
It’s not uncommon, however, to find yourself with an assortment of Cloud SLAs — one for each service your business subscribes to. Happily, the right Cloud SLA will enable you to bundle all your Cloud services into a single monthly OpEx payment.
We have all been in that conversation, when a customer is describing a need, a capability or a solution requirement that is a perfect fit for a Cloud-based platform. Before they even finish speaking, we have the “answer”! We cannot wait to jump in and prove how “smart we are”, how our company, our ecosystem partners, or our Cloud offerings are cutting-edge.
One problem. What if your client doesn’t buy into the Cloud strategy? What if they want to manage their core infrastructure, keep their data in-house and be able to “touch” their production? Regardless of the fact that Cloud-based solutions can remove complexities, this type of DIY IT buyer is impervious to white papers, TCO models, ROI calculators and any other presales tool used to funnel their IT spend to Cloud computing. Now what?
If you’ve ever suffered a data loss, you know how critically important data backup and retrieval capabilities are.
I’m here to remind you that this importance does not diminish when your data (or apps) reside in a Cloud. Nor should you simply assume your Cloud provider automatically backs up your data and apps.
When the products and services you offer look pretty much like everyone else’s products and services, what can you do to differentiate yourself ?
If your only option is to stand out with price, you risk eventually cannibalizing your own business.
That’s not all. By focusing only on price quotes for the immediate transaction, you’re leaving other unrecognized opportunities on the table. So you need to resist the knee-jerk into a price quote and find ways to describe your value-add in terms other than price
Your Cloud provider isn’t the only one with responsibility for the security of the information and applications your enterprise depends on. When it comes to security in the Cloud, it’s a collaboration between provider and customer.
After all, there are limits to a Cloud provider’s reach. For instance, if your employees use compromised web browsers to access data in the Cloud, your provider cannot be blamed.
These days, one of the biggest challenges your customers face is keeping their data, apps, and infrastructure secure from malware , hackers , and thieves .
Quest can help you keep your customers safe and identify vulnerabilities that are often overlooked. With comprehensive state-of-the-art security capabilities, Quest has built the understanding that to be effective, security measures need to work together in awareness of each other. That’s why we customize, integrate, and fine-tune our security offerings to precisely fit your customers’ particular needs.
