Hedge funds need to keep some key questions in mind as they investigate potential private cloud providers
→ What are the fund’s main considerations as it shops for a private cloud provider?
→ Does the cloud computing vendor’s service allow for easy scalability and the quick addition of resources, including CPU, memory, storage and bandwidth?→ Does the cloud infrastructure feature an N+1 configuration to tolerate any single equipment failure and ensure high availability?
→ Does the vendor offer dedicated or shared resources within the cloud? Will a client’s data be isolated from that of other clients?
→ Does the cloud provider offer disaster recovery services as part of its offerings? If so, how often does the provider test its DR systems?
→ What technology vendors have applications operating within the cloud? What is the level of certification for these technology partners?
→ Does the cloud provider own its equipment?
→ Does the cloud provider have SAS70 certification for its data center support?
→ What type of security and monitoring practices are in place at the data centers?
→ Is the data center located far enough away from the production environment to ensure there will be minimal impact in a disaster situation but close enough to maintain a high speed connection?
→ Is the cloud infrastructure backed by a service level agreement (SLA) that ensures top performance and uptime?
→ How long has the provider been in the business?
→ What is the level of on-staff, internal expertise with cloud computing?
→ How familiar is the provider with leading virtualization technologies such as:
- VMWare’s offerings
- Citrix’s products
- The Xen Hypervisor and Xen Cloud Platform from XEN.org
- Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) implementations
- The use of the free Ubuntu operating system for the cloud
- and Microsoft’s Hyper-V Cloud
Sources: Eze Castle Integration and MetaFrame Technology Solutions
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