Recommendations to Evaluate and Choose Cloud Services and Deployment Models for e-Business Strategic Use: A Case Study of Malaysian SMEs

This research aims to investigate the best practices of Cloud Computing within the e-Business context for the Malaysian SMEs. Findings showed that the SMEs have difficulty to decide and consider cloud computing services and deployment model due to lack of awareness and exposure on how they can benefit from this enabled technology. In this paper, we will discuss the proposed recommendation of good practices in using Cloud Computing for e-Business needs, focusing on evaluating and choosing Cloud service and deployment model. This paper also discussed the qualitative and quantitative approaches that were used to gather data on how the Cloud Computing services can strategically provide technology and business opportunities to the SMEs in Malaysia. The deliverable from this research is a set of recommendations to guide the Malaysian SMEs to adopt both e- Business and Cloud Computing technologies that consists of five recommendations Create and enhance awareness of the Cloud Computing concept, Evaluate and choose a suitable Cloud service model, Evaluate and choose a suitable Cloud deployment model, Evaluate cloud provider, Test then applies the Cloud.