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- Are You Comfortable with the ASP's Approach to Major Data Center Issues Such as Backup, Disaster-Proofing, and Data and Physical Security?
- Can the ASP Provide the Type of Secure Broadband Network that Best Suits Your Requirements?
- Is the ASP's IT Infrastructure Scalable Enough to Accommodate Your Company's Growth or Variations in Activity?
- Do You Prefer that an Outside Party Remotely Monitor All the ASP's Facilities (Such as Data Centers) and Security Equipment (Such as Firewalls)?
- Do You Require that the Application You Lease Be Extensively Customized?
- Do You Need Accelerated Deployment of the Hosted Application?
- Which, If Any, of these Hosted Enabling Technologies Do You Need, and Why?
- What Extent of Technical Support and Customer Service Do You Require?
- Which ASP Pricing Model Best Meets Your Company's Activity Patterns—Does the ASP Offer that Model?
- Does the ASP's Standard Service Level Agreement (SLA) Meet Your Needs? If Not, Will the ASP Change It, and How Much Does It Charge to Change It?
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4. Do You Prefer that an Outside Party Remotely Monitor All the ASP's Facilities (Such as Data Centers) and Security Equipment (Such as Firewalls)?
If you want someone other than the ASP to verify that it is giving the performance levels stipulated in your SLA, then you'd be wise to request that a Management Service Provider (MSP) do so. MSPs measure the ongoing performance of an ASP's IT infrastructure and then provide real-time feedback to verify SLAs to both the customer and ASP.
Customers such as financial institutions that require hermetic security should request a Managed Security Provider (MSecP). ASPs outsource any or all of their customer security responsibilities to MSecPs, which in turn perform activities such as intrusion-detection and incident response.