What essential things a user should know before going for cloud computing platform?

Question

What are some platforms which are used for large scale cloud computing?

Answer 1

1. Know what your company needs.
2. Know the nature, scope and limitations of the service your company are buying.
3. Know what kind of data your company will be sending to the cloud.
4. Know what laws and regulations apply.
5. Know who owns the data and what rights in it that the cloud provider reserves to itself.
6. Know whether your company can count on the cloud provider.
7. Know what will happen if the vendor does not meet its obligations.
8. Know what will happen at contract expiration or termination.
9. Know whether your vendor will be solvent and able to respond to its indemnity obligations.
10. Know what your company will do if your vendor goes away.
11. What is the cost of the cloud platform
12. What is the disaster recovery plan of the cloud service provider.
13. What are the system monitoring tools provided i.e. disk utilization, I/O, Load balancing functionality and CPU thresholds.
14. What is offering if you need more services.

Top Cloud Service Providers

1. Salesforce: http://www.salesforce.com
2. Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/aws
3. Microsoft Azure: http://www.microsoft.com/cloud
4. Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/cloud
5. Google: http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/landing/partners/resellers/
6. SAP: http://www.sap.com/cloud
7. SoftLayer (IBM): http://www.softlayer.com
8. Terremark (a Verizon Company): http://www.terremark.com
9. Rackspace: http://www.rackspace.com
10. NetSuite: http://www.netsuite.com