Service is the most important issue to consider when looking at outsourcing your website or applications to a hosting company. Follow this simple checklist to ensure you're getting the support you need:
Service levels - Whilst it is important to negotiate and get the most out of your SLA, too much emphasis is put on this. Meet the hosting provider. Speak to the staff. Find out how passionate they really are about what they do. After all, service levels are down to them.
Focus - Are you hosting with a specialist or a generalist? You want access to unrivalled technical knowledge and a support team that knows the marketplace inside out and where it's going.
Support - Find out who will be looking after your account and how accessible they are. How easy is it to speak to them? A named, known manager who understands your needs will go the extra mile to make sure you're always the top priority even if it's 2am in the morning!
Flexibility - Don't get tied into contracts. If there's no flexibility in terms of contract length it doesn't bode well for service levels. If there isn't, there should be a clear definition of what failures will allow an early exit.
Scalability - Your hosting needs may well change as your business grows or new projects are taken on board. Make sure you can easily change your bandwidth needs and increase your servers without penalty.
Stability - How long has a hosting provider been in the industry? How many people does it employ? Find out some background before you sign anything. You need to make sure that your provider is still going to be around in the next 12 months.
Resiliency - A hosting provider should use more than one carrier to provide insurance against downtime. They should be able to guarantee 100% network uptime. Otherwise, it's the same as a power provider not being able to supply electricity. There are no excuses.
Guaranteed fix time - Any maintenance work should be carried out in a fixed time and without the whole network being taken down. Spares should be stored on site and providers should have the technological capability to fix the hardware problem in-house - many companies have to order parts, which can take days.
Security - Is the data centre safe? Has the network been protected? Are there intrusion detection solutions on your systems? These are all vital security-related questions you should ask before handing over parts of your business to hosting provider. This must be detailed in the agreement .
Performance monitoring and reporting - This should be available, free and accessible at all times - any reliable company should be monitoring performance on a continual basis and reports should be available via the web 24 hours a day. Your host should live and breath hosting.
No comments:
Post a Comment