Issues choosing cloud platform

When choosing the cloud as the platform of an information system, an organisation should consider the following issues.

1. Security and privacy: protection of data against breach, multi-tenant risks, encryption, identity and access management.
2. Data location and legal compliance: where the data is stored, national laws (for example Nepal's Electronic Transactions Act and data localisation requirements, NRB rules for banks), and regulations such as GDPR.
3. Availability and reliability: SLA guarantees, downtime history, disaster recovery and backup.
4. Performance and latency: speed over the Internet, particularly in Nepal where bandwidth may be limited or unstable; distance from data centres.
5. Cost: subscription, storage, data transfer (egress) and hidden charges; total cost of ownership compared with on-premise.
6. Vendor lock-in and portability: difficulty of moving data and applications to another provider; standards and APIs.
7. Integration and compatibility: with existing systems and applications.
8. Scalability and flexibility: ability to grow or shrink resources as demand changes.
9. Control and customisation: limited control over infrastructure, upgrades and configuration.
10. Provider reliability and support: financial stability, reputation, certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2) and technical support.
11. Data ownership and exit: who owns the data, how it is returned or deleted when the contract ends.
12. Skills and change: staff training and organisational readiness.
13. Internet dependency: the system is unavailable without connectivity.