Cloud computing - for long a technology that seemed to be the preserve of “bleeding edge” organisations and those with deep pockets. Cloud has now become mainstream to the extent that not evaluating how cloud computing can help, could be detrimental to your business.

With Microsoft joining the fray with its Microsoft Online Services and the likes of the Telegraph migrating to Google, there is no way that we can argue that this is technology designed for companies who like to live at the technology envelope.  The recession as well as the distributed nature of many organisations workforces’ means that we need to invest in technology that can minimise our headcount costs but can be switched on easily and cheaply as we grow.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t just jump in without due diligence. Before you look at migrating some or your entire infrastructure to the cloud you need to consider the following and although the list may seem onerous, remember your business relies on the decisions you make:

1.    The Provider: Who are they, where are they based, how long have they been trading, how many customers they have and do they have any in your sector and region.

2.    Service Costs - You should only be invoiced for what you use. If your usage is seasonal then you should be able to increase/decrease the user count easily. You should not be charged for maintenance.

3.    Security - Security of your information should be your overriding concern. The questions that you need to ask include: what security is in place, what level of encryption is used and how the data stored for different customers is managed and or if they have monitoring software that checks the system inside as well as outside of the firewall.

4.    Deployment – One of the key benefits of SAAS is that there is no client (PC) install, so ensure that is the case – else it negates the advantage of SAAS. Likewise check for browser compatibility. In an ideal world applications should run on IE as well as Chrome and Safari and Firefox. If your corporate standard is IE, make sure the SAAS vendor’s application runs seamlessly on IE. If you run MAC’s then check compatibility with Safari.

5.    Heritage – Check whether the application you’re interested in has been designed to work in a SAAS environment – by that I mean – have they “bunged” a web front end onto a legacy application or has it been designed from the ground up as a SAAS application.

6.    Upgrades - One of the key advantages to using a SAAS solution is the advantage that you don’t need to worry about upgrades – this ensures that you are always on the latest version. These upgrades should be included in the user cost and need to be delivered unobtrusively. Check how often upgrades are performed and crucially at what time of the day or night – their local time may not be your local time.

7.    Interoperability – Does your stuff work with their stuff? If you’re deploying a CRM system make sure you can access your contacts database so that you don’t need to retype data.

8.    Backup and Restore – People automatically assume that data is backed up but you need to check that is the case – also see whether you are able to download all your data locally – just in case. Backing up is only one part – restoring data is another – check what processes are in place and whether a test restore has been done.

9.    Data Centre - Determine who is hosting the solution. Is it hosted by the vendor or with others (called either managed-serviced or co-location). Ideally the data centre should have gone through what is called in the industry an SAS 70 Type II audit.

10.    Scalability - Your SAAS vendor needs to prove that it can grow with your company. Ask the vendor about their largest customers as well as the smallest and what proportion they make up of the customer base. What are their growth plans and where do they see the business developing.

Tony Crowhurst is an independent technology writer and consultant with extensive BI experience. Tony has successfully advised on the implementation of SAAS. tcrowhurst@hotmail.com