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Some Questions to ask an prospective SaaS provider

Communication and Operations Management
1 Network Security
IDS How are the Signatures Managed?
IPS Is this Linked to the Incident Management Systems?
2 Network Management
Encrypted Authentication Credentials How is data Managed, Do all the users share a single Database?
3 Administrative Ports - How is it managed Is Administrative Privileges restricted to Ips or ports ?
4 Network Logging What kind of logging is done
5 Virus Protection - Servers How are you protected from Virus, On a common platform do you scan all documents for Virus before upload
6 Administrative Activity Logging Is all Admin Activity Logged? What are the parameters Logged
7 Log-on Activity Logging Is the Logging of individuals maintained including time sheet users?
8 Log Retention How long are the logs retained
9 Web Site Privacy Policy What about Privacy Policy. What is the due care policy specific to a individual client
10 Web Site Client Encryption What kind of Client Encryption utilized and How do you identify the admins? Is there a certificate issued for admins?
11 Email Relaying Is mail relay done for third party domains?
12 Physical Media Tracking What is the policy with regard to backups and storage of information?
13 Security of Media in Transit Where are the backups stored how? What are the access policies for these backup media
14 Network Security - Authorized network Traffic What kind of traffic is authorized on the servers hosting the application as well as the back end
15 Network Security Firewalling - What kind of firewalling is used and How are they managed
16 Change Control Is there a formal change control policy, How are these communicated to the clients?

ACCESS CONTROLS
17 Password Controls What are the password controls for admins and clients
18 Revoke System Access How is system access revoked, how is it reinstated?
19 Logical Access Authorization How many roles are defined and how are they managed
20 Inactive Accounts How are inactive accounts addressed
21 Physical Access Authorization Who authorizes physical access to the servers?
22 Multi-factor Authentication for Remote Access If remote admin is done, is two factor authentication used

23 INCIDENT MANAGEMENT What is the Incident Management process in vogue?
How soon do you respond to an incident and notify client of any incident and what severity of incident would get escalated?
24 BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT What about Business Continuity in the event of disaster
Are the clients part of your BCP plan? How would we be notified?
25 COMPLIANCE Is there a requirement to be compliant any federal mandates, if yes which are the ones

AVAILABILITY
26 Uptime Availability What is the uptime availability of the Servers?
27 What is the SLA for the Web Application?
28 What is the Mean Time to Respond for Incidents
29 What is the Mean time to Repair for Incidents
30 What Ticketing System is used for support
31 What are the penalities for breaching the SLA
DATA PROTECTION
32 Is the Database common for all clients?
33 How is the data protected between different Clients
34 If I end my contract what is that I have to do to get my data
OTHERS
35 Is your application Integrate with other applications , What are they?
36 How often do you update your product. Is there a regular release cycle?
37 Do the clients have options to run multiple versions of the Application? Or is it only one version?
DATA CENTER
38 Where is the Servers Hosted?
39 Is the Service Levels that is received from your vendors higher than the SLA promised to clients?
40 Is your application servers clustered? Georgraphically ?
41 Do you have a secondary provider as a fall back in the case of the primary vendor having a disaster?
42 Are you insured for service failure?

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