“Standard cloud computing contracts are one-sided documents that impose responsibility for security and data protection on the customer, disclaim all liability, offer no warranties, and give the vendor the right to suspend service at will. So why would you bother to sign on the dotted line?”

This statement identifies the differentiation metric for Cloud services: Service Level Agreements.  No person, no department, no business functions without them.  We do best when they are explicit and negotiated at the start of service delivery, but rest assured you are responsible for a certain service level whether you’ve been told it explicitly or not.

Link here.