HBD BJW!
Cloud Providers… and Choices that Count
Arg.
Why is that? Why is it difficult to find partners to help in understanding the cloud "stack" and getting things right? It seems to me that it’s in the best interest of the provider to give great support, be watching over how you have things set up to make sure it’s the best it can be. After all, in the long-run, it makes them (the provider) look good, makes others interested in their services, etc. I also think that it could be automated, but that’s another day, another column.
Grant wrote in on this very thing – vendors that are taking notice (I hope more do so): "As a solutions architect at a cloud provider I really liked your article. Our approach is different than most. We have well trained support staff available 24×7 we do our best NOT to push configuration of “external” settings (firewall, VM, AD, etc.) onto the customer. Rather we work with the customer (response time <15 min) to make the required changes.
We get some push back for this approach but the vast majority like it. Not only does it save them time but it ensures that the changes are made correctly the first time. We believe that cloud services providers should emphasize the “service” component by maintaining a customer-centric approach."
There are also some good tools out there for monitoring – I’ll have more on those in coming days.
I will also be passing along some more points about questions to ask and so-on. If you have more you’d like to share, drop me a note, let me know.