The cloud evolution continues

The cloud in its various stages of evolution has been available for fifteen years. Solutions, technologies and operating models are developing with dynamism. The use of the reference models of IT and the technology itself has become increasingly differentiated in recent years. There is no question that this trend will continue in the coming years.

Currently, 46 percent of enterprises in this country are in an advanced stage of cloud adoption, meaning they are using the cloud extensively across multiple workloads based on a modernized architecture, transferable solution approaches and comprehensive policies, and with the addition of developed provider management.

"The cloud does not exist alongside IT, but is increasingly becoming an integral part of the IT landscape." emphasizes Matthias Zacher, Senior Consulting Manager at market researcher IDC.

Transparency and agility

IDC surveyed IT and business decision makers from 200 organizations with more than 100 employees in Germany in June this year to gain detailed insights into current implementation plans, challenges and success factors regarding cloud. All of the companies surveyed have taken a comprehensive look at cloud services and cloud technology: Transparency, flexibility and agility without the cloud?

No longer imaginable in German companies

The success and acceptance of the cloud depends to a large extent on how well business initiatives are supported. 35 percent of respondents expect the cloud to provide greater scalability of the infrastructure, 33 percent expect solutions to be provided more quickly, and 32 percent expect improved IT security. The issue of security is therefore apparently no longer a real hurdle to overcome.

The hybrid cloud has rapidly found its way into companies in Germany over the past two years. It provides an optimal environment to meet regulatory requirements with the private cloud, while allowing to benefit from the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud.

IDC observes that the development is moving inexorably in the direction of multiple clouds. More and more companies are using different cloud types or the services of different cloud providers. 87 percent of respondents state that they are operating or planning to operate multi-cloud environments.

There is therefore no question that the multi-cloud will become the dominant model and that every company would be well advised to build up the relevant know-how about multi-cloud management.

Colocation and hosting

Colocation and hosting increase the flexibility of cloud use and can deliver clear added value. Colocation resources are no longer limited to the core components of space, power and network, but have been expanded to include platforms for the operation of hybrid infrastructures and the use of multi-cloud. As a result, they are meeting a high demand from many companies. 59 percent of respondents use or plan to use colocation resources.

Hosting services provide an extraordinary number of different services in a cloud sourcing model. These range from pure infrastructure such as bare metal servers and storage to orchestrated environments, network hosting and solution components such as back-up solutions, databases and data clusters to web offerings and complete infrastructure applications. The boundaries to public cloud offerings are often blurred. 67 percent of respondents currently use hosting services or plan to use them.

Compliance, security and profitability

The cloud in its various facets has gained acceptance primarily because it answers the questions of compliance, security, cost-effectiveness, scalability, agility and customer satisfaction. The cloud is available for almost all workloads and supports business and IT in almost all areas. Companies benefit from the cloud in terms of both process optimization and innovation, as the results of the latest IDC study clearly underline.

The current requirement for companies is explicitly to select the appropriate solutions for the respective workload from the continuously growing number of offerings and the rapid technological development. IDC is convinced that in the IT of the next generation, functions will increasingly be mapped in business platforms. This must be the common goal of providers and users. Judging by the current survey, IDC believes that the German market is well positioned for the challenges ahead.