Choosing the right cloud partner is fundamental to achieving the full advantages of the cloud. It’s a challenging endeavor, however, in a market saturated with service providers of varying levels of experience, capabilities and track records. If you’re a federal government decision-maker, here are five key considerations to take into account in choosing a provider: security, scope, speed, sample and spend. I call them the five “S”s of a good cloud partner.

Security

Look for a certified-secure cloud provider that can deliver services designed specifically to meet the demands of FedRAMP. Remember, in the end, your agency is still accountable under FedRAMP, and you need a proven provider with security controls you can accept with confidence. Don’t be fooled by providers that claim ‘certification’ but really have authorization from only one agency. Make your prospective cloud service partner demonstrate that its solution is ready for FedRAMP. Genuinely certified cloud providers have made significant investments in infrastructure, expert staff and service management technology to meet FedRAMP requirements. Reduce your risk by making sure you ask your partner the tough questions and understand their proven performance for other agencies.

Scope

Make sure you think through everything you really need. Moving enterprise-wide systems into the cloud requires more than just servers. You’ll need service management, program management, migration help, integration capabilities, security services, etc. Does your agency have the resources to handle all of this? If not, simplify your cloud transition and management by finding a cloud service provider that can offer complete cloud services and solutions.

Speed

When it comes to the cloud, federal agencies want to act fast both to save money and to meet mission mandates. Find a provider that can move services to the cloud in record time and has the client references to prove it. The provider should have a solid delivery framework for ensuring not only savings, security and quality but also speed and agility.

Sample

Cloud has ushered in a new era for buying government IT services. You can now “fly before you buy.” No longer do you need to rely solely on paper proposals and past performance. Insist on sampling a prospective vendor’s operational capabilities through a dedicated-to-you demo. Take the vendor through the scenarios you expect to encounter in moving your systems in the cloud and have it demonstrate how it would handle each scenario. Make sure it has the necessary capabilities already in place before you buy, instead of having to acquire them once the contract is signed.

Savings

Many federal agencies start off thinking about the cloud by comparing service provider rates. Without a doubt, an advantage of cloud is that it’s much less expensive than what the government spends today on legacy solutions. But just looking at advertised, competing rates is misleading. The real key is figuring out your total spend. Without this analysis, you may end up spending a lot more than you need for reasons such as the lack of disciplined service management—server sprawl happens in the virtual world, just as it does in the legacy world.  Can your service provider make your applications “cloud aware,” so they automatically scale up and down to meet demand? Lastly, make sure you are buying comparable sets of services or you may be in for a surprise when you find you need to spend more to get what you actually need to complete your cloud initiative.

So, go ahead and look at cloud as an IT solution. You will be pleasantly surprised at the savings, speed and flexibility available to you. Taking into account the five “S”s will bring greater focus to the vendor field, maximizing the odds of a successful cloud initiative by finding the best cloud partner.