Cloud Provider Evaluation

AWS vs. Azure vs. GCP

The three major cloud providers have different strengths:

  • AWS: Broadest service catalog, largest ecosystem, most mature. Best for: general-purpose workloads, startups, organizations without existing Microsoft investments.
  • Azure: Best Microsoft integration (Active Directory, Office 365, SQL Server). Best for: Microsoft-centric organizations, hybrid cloud with on-premises Windows infrastructure.
  • GCP: Best data analytics and ML capabilities (BigQuery, Vertex AI). Best for: data-intensive workloads, organizations with significant Google Workspace usage.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Service availability: Does the provider offer the specific services your workloads require?
  • Regional coverage: Does the provider have regions in the geographies you need?
  • Compliance certifications: Does the provider have the certifications required for your regulated workloads (FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI DSS, ISO 27001)?
  • Pricing: Total cost for your specific workload mix, including compute, storage, network, and managed services
  • Support quality: Response times, technical depth, and escalation paths for your support tier
  • Ecosystem: Partner ecosystem, marketplace, and third-party tool integrations

Avoiding Lock-In

Cloud provider lock-in is a real risk. Mitigation strategies: use open-source technologies (Kubernetes, PostgreSQL) rather than proprietary services where possible, design for portability, and maintain the ability to migrate workloads if needed. Complete portability is impractical — focus on portability for the most critical workloads.

Managed Cloud Services

Managed cloud services — where a third party manages cloud infrastructure on your behalf — can significantly reduce operational overhead. Evaluation criteria:

  • Scope of management: What does the provider manage? Infrastructure only, or also applications and databases?
  • SLAs: What availability and response time commitments does the provider make?
  • Security responsibilities: Who is responsible for security patching, vulnerability management, and incident response?
  • Visibility: Do you retain visibility into your cloud environment, or is it a black box?
  • Exit rights: Can you take back management of your environment if the relationship doesn't work?
  • Cost transparency: Are cloud costs passed through at actual cost, or marked up?

Migration Partner Selection

Cloud migration partners (system integrators, managed service providers) provide the expertise and capacity to execute migrations. Key evaluation criteria:

  • Certifications: AWS Premier Partner, Azure Expert MSP, Google Cloud Premier Partner
  • Migration experience: Number of migrations completed, workload types, and scale
  • Reference customers: Customers with similar workloads and scale
  • Methodology: Documented migration methodology with discovery, assessment, planning, and execution phases
  • Post-migration support: Ongoing managed services or hypercare support after migration
  • Pricing model: Fixed-price vs. time-and-materials; risk allocation

Contract Terms

Egress Costs

Data egress costs are a significant and often underestimated cloud cost. Negotiate egress cost caps or discounts for high-volume data transfer. Understand egress costs before committing to a provider for data-intensive workloads.

Support SLAs

Cloud provider support tiers vary significantly in response time and technical depth. Enterprise support (AWS, Azure, GCP) provides faster response times and dedicated technical account managers. Verify that the support tier you purchase meets your incident response requirements.

Committed Use Discounts

Negotiate committed use discounts (Enterprise Discount Programs) for large cloud commitments. AWS, Azure, and GCP all offer private pricing for large customers. Engage your cloud provider's enterprise sales team before signing a large commitment.

Data Portability

Ensure contract terms allow you to export your data in standard formats. Cloud providers generally do not restrict data export, but verify that managed services do not create proprietary data formats that complicate migration.

Common Mistakes

  • Selecting on brand recognition: AWS is not always the right choice; evaluate based on workload requirements
  • Ignoring egress costs: Egress costs can be significant for data-intensive workloads; model them before committing
  • Underestimating migration complexity: Cloud migrations consistently take longer and cost more than initial estimates
  • Not negotiating: Cloud pricing is negotiable for large commitments; engage enterprise sales teams
  • Selecting a migration partner on price: The cheapest migration partner is rarely the best value
  • No exit strategy: Plan for the possibility of migrating away from a provider before you commit