Don’t Choose a Cloud Infra Partner Without Reading This Checklist

Intro

Starting on the wrong foot with a cloud infrastructure partner can cost you downtime, money, and a competitive edge. This assertive, data-backed checklist will guide your decision-making by cutting through hype and highlighting what real experts look for.

1. Proven Reliability & Uptime Track Record

• Essential question: Do they provide documented SLAs and show uptime history spanning the past 12–24 months?
  
  
• Supporting stat: According to Gartner, IT downtime costs average $5,600 per minute, or over $300,000 per hour, in large enterprises. TechSpective
  

2. Security Certifications & Compliance Readiness

• Essential question: Are essential certifications like ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR (or industry-specific ones like HIPAA) in place? Can they show audited compliance reports?
  
  
• Supporting stat: Per Asanti/ITPro, 72% of organizations experienced IT disruptions in the past year, yet only 31% felt very confident in their disaster recovery plans. IT Pro
  

3. Scalability Without Budget Surprises

• Essential question: Can they support real-time scalability without locking you into costly overprovisioning?
  
  
• Supporting stat: The Flexera 2024 State of the Cloud Report shows many organizations experience unexpected cloud cost overruns—nearly 50% spent more than budgeted Flexera
  

4. Transparent Cost Structure

• Essential question: Are pricing models clear for compute, storage, networking, and support—with no hidden fees?
  
  
• Supporting stat: Businesses without cost governance waste as much as 32% of their cloud spend, according to the FinOps Foundation. CloudZero
  

5. Technical Expertise & Multi-Cloud Capability

• Essential question: Do they have certified expertise across AWS, Azure, and GCP? Are there published customer success stories to demonstrate it?
  
  
• Supporting stat: 87% of enterprises now operate on multi-cloud models, per the 2024 Flexera report. CloudZero
  

6. Automation & DevOps Readiness

• Essential question: Can they automate infrastructure provisioning, security, and compliance via IaC and CI/CD?
  
  
• Supporting stat: Organizations with strong DevOps and automation practices deploy 200× more frequently and recover from failures 24× faster, per DORA research.
  

7. Effective Support & Incident Response

• Essential question: Do they guarantee real SLAs around response and escalation for critical incidents, not just an email or chat bot?
  
  
• Supporting stat: 68% of IT leaders say vendor support shortcomings delayed their resolution of critical problems, according to Forrester
  

Closing Statement 

Cloud infrastructure isn’t just another vendor decision—it’s foundational to your organization’s agility, reliability, and growth. This checklist is designed to cut through the marketing fluff and surface the partners truly capable of matching your ambition.