Connected Sunday Business Post September 2020 – Covid-19 makes the case for cloud and hybrid IT solutions
One consequence of the coronavirus is accelerated use of the cloud and higher costs, but there is a growing market for hybrid services – combining cloud and data centre storage.
Anecdotal evidence that home working caused a spike in cloud usage during lockdown is now backed up by hard numbers.
In a survey by software asset management specialist Flexera, 57 per cent of companies said they expect higher than planned cloud usage in 2020 and a 47 per cent rise in cloud spend in 2021.
Gartner forecasts that public cloud spending will grow by 6.3 per cent in 2020 to $257.9 billion, up from $242.7 billion last year. Desktop-as-a-service offerings are the biggest beneficiary, with investment expected to increase by 95 per cent year-on-year to $1.2bn.
None of this will come as a great surprise to the many businesses that have been talking openly about how Covid-19 has accelerated digital strategies and cloud migration plans.
Another less discussed development, however, has been a focus on costs around Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud consumption, and how hybrid IT strategies might alleviate cloud bills that have gone through the roof during the pandemic.
Steve Blanche, chief technology officer at Ergo, emphasized the importance of careful planning and preparation in advance of cloud migration.
“We have seen businesses that went to the cloud in an unplanned way and paid the price in terms of workflow, performance and cost management. That’s why we developed a blueprint to ensure we can manage client costs down to every cent per second. It’s critical if you move from a ‘capex’ to ‘opex’ model,” he said.
Ergo’s cost analysis and advisory services are part of an ongoing monitoring process that continues after the initial cloud move, prompting tweaks and changes to ensure clients save money and extract maximum value at all times. With this level of attention, the business case for cloud becomes even more compelling, according to Blanche, and it’s been accentuated by the pandemic.
“Every organization has now moved some services from traditional platforms to the cloud, particularly to SaaS solutions like Microsoft 365, where you can reap the benefits more quickly, especially when it’s about a fast and efficient way to get people to work remotely,” he said.
Blanche goes as far as to say that the ‘cloud-first’ marketing mantra of the big cloud vendors is becoming more credible.
“Microsoft has become so security oriented in its design that it’s increasingly difficult to argue against a complete cloud-first IT strategy,” he said. “Issues remain about where data resides and regulatory compliance, but the idea of hybrid is getting eaten away as confidence around cloud security, governance and data management grows.”
Ergo has earned Microsoft accreditations in these areas and topped it off by being named Microsoft Country Partner of the Year for 2020, the fifth time it has scooped the award in 10 years.
“Our whole focus has been on developing expertise in helping customers adopt cloud services and it’s great that Microsoft sees us as the leader in the Irish market,” said Blanche.
While he accepts there are still arguments for having dedicated kit on-premise, and acknowledges that private clouds can emulate the scalability and flexibility of public clouds, he believes the cloud-first business case will almost always win out.
“Covid-19 shone a light on the shortcomings of legacy and traditional on-premise platforms,” he said.
“Businesses had tons of servers and networking kit sitting idle because nobody was in those buildings and able to consume those very expensive systems. They have had to adopt cloud services. They can always switch back but on-premise and data centres will never give them the same levels of flexibility and agility.”
Read the full article here.
