Which cloud provider should you choose for your first migration? It's a bit like asking which energy provider should supply your office. It depends on your budget and where you're at as a company.

Whatever size you are, you want roughly the same things from a cloud migration – flexibility, affordability, scalability, agility and tight security. The "Big Three" – Google, AWS and Microsoft Azure – will give you those. So how do you choose?

At Ascend Cloud Solutions, we're cloud-agnostic. That means we don't push our clients towards one particular provider. If you tell us where you're going, we'll get you there.

So the aim of this article isn't to sing the praises of one vendor over another. It's simply to nudge you in the right direction for you.

So, without further ado, let's take a look at your options.

I'm a fast-growing tech startup

Like all businesses, startups need to spend money to make money – but in the early days, this can lead to a tricky balancing act. You're confident that you're going places, so you need a scalable solution. But you also need one that's affordable and will maximise ROI.

Migrating to the cloud isn't a casual purchase. Even at its most affordable, it's going to feel like a lot. And disruption is unavoidable (though it can be minimised by a reputable cloud consultant).

In the long run, though, it usually works out as cheaper than running your own rig. You may as well leverage third-party infrastructure because those guys have got the time and resources to keep things running smoothly. It's like the difference between paying a water supply company each month and digging your own reservoir.

The other big advantage is scalability. If you suddenly hit the big time, you can't take a month off to upgrade your tech – so you need to be able to scale seamlessly. With the big cloud providers, it's as easy as changing your subscription tier.

When you're looking for a cloud provider, you're looking for high uptime and tight security. The Big Three all do the job – but Google Cloud Platform could be for you if you're already using Google Workspace or focusing on Android apps.

Google also offers a "Startups Cloud Program". This gets you "access to startup experts" and up to $200,000 in cloud costs.

I'm an established SME

As you expand, you'll want to build IT infrastructure that reflects your new stature. But it's at this stage that people tend to run into obstacles – whether it's through a lack of in-house expertise, a lack of liquid cash or simply a lack of time.

Luckily, the tech industry isn't only targeting market leaders. There's a whole range of software geared towards the needs of SMEs.

When you're planning a migration, the key question to ask is what you actually need. There are two sides to this coin. First, what are your technical capabilities and requirements? And second, how does this relate to your growth plan?

You don't want to end up forking out for a suit that's a size too big. You need to go with a cloud provider that gives you what you need – no more and no less.

If you're looking for around one terabyte of online backup, you could try IDrive. This can be a good solution for stowing away the essentials – and it has powerful backup and folder syncing features.

The bigger you get, the more likely you are to explore multi-cloud or hybrid cloud solutions. Although they sound similar (lots of different clouds, right?) they're very different.

A multi-cloud solution is one where you use cloud platforms from multiple vendors. It's as if you were putting your things in storage. You might find that one vendor is best for furniture but another is better for valuables. In both cases, you're aiming to get the best deal at every stage.

A hybrid cloud, by contrast, is where you use a combination of private and public cloud resources. This becomes especially appealing if you deal with a lot of sensitive data. You can store that on an on-premise private cloud, with your other, less confidential, workloads running on the public cloud.

Naturally, these multi- and hybrid cloud solutions are complex to plan and deploy. It's important to check that whoever you go with, you're getting value for money, flexibility, scalability and high security.

I'm a global enterprise

Once you're an established global player, you're going to have a huge number of workloads and a huge team. Remote accessibility is a priority – you need everyone to have access to resources, whether they're in Limerick or Lausanne.

But your other priority is security – and this can be a sticking point for some large organisations. They simply don't trust that the cloud is as secure as a private data centre.

This is a reasonable concern. After all, the more data you have, the more it will cost you if you suffer a breach.

But the big players have security resources that are incredibly hard to match on-site – and if you go for a multi- or hybrid cloud solution, you're battening down the hatches with foot-long nails. 

Household names like AWS and Azure are still an option – but one solution popular with large enterprises is Oracle Cloud. This is built for big players and is ideal for enterprises with heavy databases. There's a reason it's used by Bank of America, Airbnb, Adidas and others.

The bottom line

Whatever the size of your business, your priorities are roughly the same. You want all the advantages of a cloud solution with a minimum of disruption to your day-to-day operations.

Here at Ascend Cloud Solutions, we've managed over 400 migrations and counting. We know VMware cloud migration like the backs of our hands – and we use that expertise to create a migration plan that meets your unique requirements. Get in touch for a free, no-obligation consultation. We'd love to hear from you.