Over half of the region’s leading IT decision-makers identify Cloud computing as the company’s priority in the next 12 months, at 58.6 per cent, while 91 percent of enterprises are either already using Ccloud services or currently in the planning or implementing stage.
According to a F5 Networks commissioned, and Frost & Sullivan implemented white paper, The New Language of Cloud Computing, a large number of companies adopting Cloud services at 47.4 per cent are looking to complement their existing IT set-up, while 24.9 per cent are looking to enhance and 20.7 per cent to augment their existing IT environment.
Evaluating how enterprises in Asia Pacific are discussing, evaluating, and implementing cloud-based solutions, the paper outlines an A-B-C-D framework that identifies four key factors shaping today’s enterprise cloud services decisions:
· Applications: Enterprises are increasingly outsourcing strategic and core workloads to the cloud, including mission critical applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and security.
· Business decision-makers: The role of non-IT business leaders in cloud services planning and procurement is expanding.
· Customers: Discussions on cloud adoption are shifting from business-centric to customer-centric, focusing on how cloud services can enhance the value and experience delivered to customers.
· Defence: Security and privacy of IT environments remain a key focus, with 68 percent identifying security as the biggest impediment in adopting cloud services.
“With virtually all enterprises now currently using or in the process of adopting Cloud computing – and seeing real business benefits – understanding and decision-making around Cloud is rapidly maturing and evolving,” says Emmanuel Bonnassie, senior vice-president, Asia-Pacific, F5 Networks.
“We noted increasing conversations in leveraging the advantage of hybrid IT environments to deliver the agility and flexibility of Cloud computing while maintaining security, control, and visibility over the last six months.
“To fully benefit from a hybrid infrastructure, IT silos must be broken down, applications and supporting services must be abstracted from infrastructure so they can be seamlessly and automatically provisioned across multiple parts of a hybrid environment, offering businesses greater agility, scalability, and freedom.”
The study also showed a strong understanding of the actual benefits of cloud services beyond cost-savings, particularly in driving business model innovation and experimentation without increasing capital expenditure or other risks.
Three out of four decision-makers agree that cloud services are a solution to “faster speed to market and increase competitiveness”, while 70 per cent agree that Cloud computing “is a critical component in any business transformation strategy.”
Closer to home and enterprises across Australia and New Zealand in particular are leveraging Cloud services to increase their speed-to-market for new products and services and to increase competitiveness.
Bonnassie says this is especially evident in the banking sector – a strong proponent of Cloud services and supplemented by the need to provide flexibility to meet business demands via real-time, on-demand computing.
Furthermore, data security threats and risks to the business, however, continue to be primary concerns for Cloud adoption across A/NZ and when accessing applications via the cloud, enterprises Down Under value security and availability the most.
In addition, the findings indicate that Software-Defined Everything (SDE) and related emerging technologies will best meet the management demands of automated environments as Cloud services begin to resemble an infinite resource pool, with intelligent, real-time monitoring and managing systems.
The paper further notes that the resulting Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) IT environment is predicted to significantly disrupt the way technology is consumed and inspire business model innovation – ultimately transforming whole industries.
