Making the Right Decisions: Cloud Service Comparisons

Ben Svalbe, Principal Technical Consultant, Macquarie Telecom

Authored by Ben Svalbe, Principal Technical Consultant

Major companies often have to make important decisions, and one question that will inevitably arise during the process is how to compare competing products/services. The actual nuts and bolts of a product are often obfuscated by the brochure-ware, especially in technology. It’s very difficult to understand exactly what you are buying unless you were to delve very deep. A good example would be attempting to compare Macquarie Telecom’s cloud offerings to a service like AWS (Amason Web Services) and understanding the underlying commercial and technical implications of cloud service comparisons.

Service comparisons are no different in regard to data centre offerings, where every company has their own marketing efforts. Buyers that are shopping around should do their due diligence around certification and fit for purpose. It is about getting down to the reality of the service being offered and whether it is a good fit for your business’ goals.

Here are some key factors that businesses should consider when comparing competing services:

Compliance and Accreditation.

If your business is an online retailer, it may be necessary to pay particular attention to PCI compliance. Data centre services should provide peace of mind around processes and procedures. Accreditation such as ISO-27001 certification is highly relevant. Buyers can use standardisation and repeatability to be certain of the outcome at each step during the course of the project.

High Availability.

If an organisation is looking to provide a very high level of availability to its end-users or customers, the very foundation of that stack is the data centre itself. Unless you are able to provide 100 percent uptime guarantees around the data centre, it will prove very difficult to provide any high-availability services further up the stack.

Security.

Security is a highly complementary feature to high availability. Most organisations are not in the business of building highly secure data centres. Instead, they can leave highly secure data centres to companies like Macquarie Telecom while they focus on doing what they do best.

Cost.

The elephant in the room in this day and age is cost. Businesses are out to streamline, both in terms of the systems they provide to users and from a financial perspective. To improve the bottom line, businesses will place strong consideration on value versus cost. They must then implement a solution that utilises the optimal data centre for those needs and advance business continuity.

As with any other industry, you get what you pay for. We often see people scrutinising the bottom line around essential services such as data centres without actually understanding the potential savings that could be derived. They do not understand the underlying costs of implementing an in-house solution. A good example of this is the power prices in Australia. Many people aren’t able to accurately define the amount of power they are using inside of their buildings on compute. Macquarie Telecom offers absolute visibility around how much power is being used, enabling clients to subsequently measure any potential cost improvements that could be implemented.

To get in touch with Macquarie Telecom, complete and submit a contact form. Our customer contact team will then be in touch to assist you regarding cloud service comparisons or any other general queries you may have. They can also get you in contact with our account or new business teams, and show you around the data centre.