Find the Right DCaaS Partner
To make the most of a DCaaS engagement, an organization should look for a partner that meets its needs. Hay advises IT leaders to consider potential partners’ track records. Those with a history of delivering effectively on availability, performance and cost should be strongly considered.
Many industries face strict compliance requirements, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. DCaaS decision-makers should work with providers to meet the compliance demands of these regulations.
Hay also recommends that IT leaders look for DCaaS providers that can deliver simplicity and flexibility. On the flexibility side, the provider should be willing to work with customers on the terms and conditions of their service-level agreements.
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For simplicity, it’s often useful for companies to work with providers that offer compatibility with their current technology stack. For example, Hay says, “if you have a lot of investments in a specific vendor's hardware, you should probably look at a provider that also uses that vendor because it’s in your stack, and it works with everything else in your environment.”
Organizations should target DCaaS engagements that align with their overall tech stack, providing simplification and standardization. Urban Haas, a field CIO for CDW, says, “DCaaS should be simplifying your story, not making it more complex.”