#cloudMigration Archives

Cloud Computing Advancing, According to New Statistics

Posted on 11/03/201922/06/2021 by Tushar

The annual round-up of statistics about cloud computing has now been published by the major research companies and these have provided a wealth of valuable insights into how the cloud landscape is changing. In this post, we’ve chosen some of the more relevant statistics which highlight the areas where cloud computing is developing and where companies are spending their IT budgets. Hopefully, you’ll find these informative.

1. Vast majority of companies using cloud

The latest statistics figures from the 451 Research Group show that 90% of companies are now using cloud computing for some of their services. Indeed, the number of workloads running on cloud-hosted servers rose from 48% in 2018 to 60% in 2019. According to Cisco, this will rise to over 90% within the next two years.

2. UK is a major investor in the cloud

The UK is the world’s third-biggest investor in cloud computing, with companies spending £7.6 billion in 2019. This is just short of the £8 billion invested in China. Both countries, however, are well behind first placed US, which spent almost £100 billion on cloud computing last year.

3. Private vs public cloud

Though more expensive, the average company runs more workloads, 41%, in the private cloud compared to 38% in the public cloud. There is, however, a disparity between how larger businesses and SMEs use these forms of computing. Bigger organisations carry out 46% of workloads in the private cloud and 33% in the public cloud whereas SMEs do almost the opposite: 43% in public cloud and 35% in private. The fact that the spending on public cloud is increasing three times faster than that of private cloud indicates that more small and mid-sized companies are migrating and opting for the public solution when they do.

4. Popular cloud services on the rise

According to tech media giant, IDG, almost 90% of companies use Software as a Service (SaaS) which enables them to access and make use of software, such as Microsoft 365, over the internet. Cisco predicts that, by 2021, SaaS will handle three-quarters of all cloud workloads.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has also become very popular with over 80% of companies now using it to provide them with resources, such as servers, virtualisation, data storage and networking, that they need to run apps and carry out workloads.

5. Clear reasons for cloud migration

The cloud’s ability to give access to data from anywhere with a connection is the driving force behind over 40% of cloud migrations. The opportunities it provides for collaboration, global networking, BYOD environments and flexible, work-from-home working conditions, together with all the benefits these bring, has made this the primary reason for cloud adoption.

Other major factors to have influenced companies’ decisions include using the cloud for disaster recovery and for reducing the burden on IT staff so that they can concentrate on more business-oriented tasks.

6. Cloud more secure than in-house data centres

According to Gartner, this year will see workloads carried out in public cloud, IaaS environments experience 60% fewer security events than in-house data centres. The main reason for this is that the expense and complexities of maintaining secure in-house systems is difficult for most businesses to achieve. Public cloud providers, on the other hand, have the resources and the income to develop first-class security that uses a multi-faceted approach. As this security comes as part of the cloud service, customers who opt for IaaS can often forgo the issues of developing their own, in-house solution.

While there are still risks when using the cloud, Garner believes that within 2 years over 95% of problems will be caused by customers. Problems resulting from employee errors will be much reduced due to the increasing use of automation.

7. Main uses of cloud

Analysis of companies’ cloud spend gives a clear indication about how companies are using it. Currently, large businesses spend a quarter of their IT budgets on cloud services compared to a fifth for SMEs. The biggest spend goes on remote, online backups and disaster recovery solutions, which account for 15% of all cloud expenditure. Web and email hosting, together with online productivity, each account for around 10% of overall spend. 2019 saw companies that had already adopted cloud increase their spending by a quarter. Much of this was to help them better manage the increasing number of workloads they were migrating to the cloud.

Conclusion

As these statistics show, cloud computing is now an integral part of almost every company’s IT strategy. With IaaS helping to drive down IT costs and increase security, SaaS opening the doors to access-anywhere data and flexible working conditions and the ability of the cloud to help with disaster recovery, it is not surprising that 90% of businesses now use it. And these figures don’t even take into consideration the cloud’s ability to provide companies with artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analysis and all the other powerful technologies available.

When should you abandon your ‘lift and shift’ cloud migration strategy?

Posted on 20/01/201918/06/2021 by Tushar

The easy approach to transitioning applications to the cloud is the simple “lift and shift” method, in which existing applications are simply migrated, as is, to a cloud-based infrastructure. And in some cases, this is a practical first step in a cloud journey. But in many cases, the smarter approach is to re-write and re-envision applications in order to take full advantage of the benefits of the cloud.

By rebuilding applications specifically for the cloud, companies can achieve dramatic results in terms of cost efficiency, improved performance and better availability. On top of that, re-envisioning applications enables companies to take advantage of the best technologies inherent in the cloud, like serverless architectures, and allows the company to tie application data into business intelligence systems powered by machine learning and AI.

Of course, not all applications can move to the cloud for a variety of regulatory, security and business process reasons. And not all applications that can be moved should be re-written because the process does require a cost and time commitment. The decision on which specific applications to re-platform and which to re-envision is a complex risk/benefit calculation that must be made on an application-by-application basis, but there are some general guidelines that companies should follow in their decision-making process.

What you need to consider

Before making any moves, companies need to conduct a basic inventory of their application portfolio. This includes identifying regulatory and compliance issues, as well as downstream dependencies to map out and understand how applications tie into each other in a business process or workflow. Another important task is to assess the application code and the platform the application runs on to determine how extensive a re-write is required, and the readiness and ability of the DevOps team to accomplish the task.

The next step is to prioritize applications by their importance to the business. In order to get the most bang for the buck, companies should focus on applications that have biggest business impact. For most companies, the priority has shifted from internal systems to customer-facing applications that might have special requirements, such as the ability to scale rapidly and accommodate seasonal demands, or the need to be ‘always available’. Many companies are finding their revenue generating applications were not built to handle these demands, so those should rise to the top of the list.

Re-platform vs. re-envision

There are some scenarios where lift and shift makes sense:

Traditional data center. For many traditional, back-end data center applications, a simple lift and shift can produce distinct advantages in terms of cost savings and improved performance.
Newly minted SaaS solution. There are many customer bases that have newer SaaS offerings available to them, but perhaps the functionality or integrated solutions that are a core part of their operations are in the early stages of a development cycle. Moving the currently installed solution to the cloud via a lift and shift is an appropriate modernization step – and can easily be transitioned to the SaaS solution when the organization is ready.

However, there are two more scenarios where lift and shift strategies work against digital transformation progress.

Established SaaS solution. There is no justification, either in terms of cost or functionality, to remain on a legacy version of an application when there is a well-established SaaS solution.
Custom written and highly customized applications. This scenario calls for a total re-write to the cloud in order to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities.

By re-writing applications as cloud-native, companies can slash costs, embed security into those application, and integrate multiple applications. Meanwhile, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 end of life is fast approaching. Companies still utilizing these legacy systems will need to move applications off expiring platforms, providing the perfect impetus for modernizing now. There might be some discomfort associated with going the re-platform route, but the benefits are certainly worth the effort.

How Can Migrating to the Cloud Help Customers?

Posted on 20/01/201919/06/2021 by Tushar

There are many benefits of migrating to the cloud: financial savings, increased agility, tighter security and uninterrupted service, just to name a few. But one often overlooked benefit is the improvements it brings to the customer experience and the positive effects this has on user trust and satisfaction, brand engagement and a companyâ€™s online reputation.

Improving the user experience is increasingly important for an enterpriseâ€™s success. According to Bloomfire, over 80% of businesses see the user experience as something which helps differentiate between competitors and, by the end of the decade, it is projected to overtake price and product choices as the main reason why consumers choose one brand over another.

Online, where consumers expect immediate, unlimited and uninterrupted access to information, products or services, businesses that still use non-cloud systems may miss out on the opportunities that the cloud has to offer. Migrating to the cloud provides the tools and services businesses need to participate in todayâ€™s competitive, on-demand marketplace, enabling them to enhance the customer experience and reap the rewards of doing so. Here are the ways migrating to the cloud can improve your customersâ€™ experience.

Give customers 24/7 access to your products and services

The days where customers were prepared to wait for usual business hours to get in touch with a company are over. Today, they expect online operations to be available 24/7, whether that is to buy products, contact customer support or access online services. They also expect that these things can be done from anywhere, using any type of connected device.

By migrating to the cloud, it means that businesses have a much greater flexibility to put these things in place. For example, as employees can connect with work-based applications anywhere they have a connection, it means they can deal with customer service enquiries even when they are out of the office, helping expand operations and keeping costs to a minimum. Indeed, by using AI chat boxes, many of the inquiries a company has out of hours can be automated with only a minimal need for any human interaction.

This 24/7 availability can be provided for many services, such as product sales, ticket ordering, delivery tracking and much more.

Provide a one-stop shop

Ever had the experience of waiting for ages in a phone queue and then, when you finally get through, to be told you need to call a different number? There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than finding out they cannot access all a companyâ€™s services from a single point of entry, whether this is on the telephone or online.

Thankfully, the tools and systems available to companies which migrate to the cloud enable them to provide the integrated services that their customers demand, without them needing to leave the website.

The applications available in the cloud provide customers with easy to use interfaces from which they can manage all their services from a single place, whether on a website or smartphone app. Just think of all the things that online banking customers can now carry out on a bankâ€™s website or apps. And if they have a problem, they can have access to support using the same interface no matter where they are, what time of day or what device they are using.

Offer personalised experiences

Despite all the concerns around data privacy, most customers prefer it when companies provide them with personalised shopping experiences. Itâ€™s great for consumers seeing products and services that are tailored to their needs and desires and putting these things directly in front of customers certainly helps improve sales. Itâ€™s a win-win situation for both consumer and company and something we are seeing a lot more of when we visit websites.

The reason companies can provide personalised shopping experiences is because of the vast amount of data that is made available. Websites can track browsing and shopping history; they provide wish lists to see what people like; if customers donâ€™t inform them directly, their algorithms can quickly ascertain a consumerâ€™s age, gender, family background, geographic location and similar data; and all these things can be compared with the data of those in a similar demographic. The result is that users of these websites see an increasingly accurate guess at the things they are looking to buy and this increases their chance of buying them â€“ especially when the company uses this data to incentivise a purchase through offers and discounts.

To provide personalised shopping experiences, however, all that data needs to be collected, processed and analysed. And there is a lot of data to collect. Cloud computing offers the best way to do this, providing unlimited storage and processing capacity, charged for on a pay as you use basis while allowing the use of widely available big data and AI applications to undertake the data crunching.

Improve the trustworthiness of your brand

The cloud provides several ways to improve the reputation of your brand. With high availability cloud hosting, the bad press associated with application downtime can be a thing of the past; the security features available from service providers means that there is a reduced risk of IT systems becoming victims of cyber attacks, infections or ransomware; and the choice of cloud-based tools on offer provides a range of ways to ensure that customersâ€™ needs are dealt with quickly. Together, these things ensure that customers see your online provision as something that is both reliable and trustworthy.

Conclusion

Migrating to the cloud can greatly improve the user experience, helping to attract new customers and retain existing ones. With many tools available, the cloud can help businesses give their customers the online experiences they demand, providing 24/7 access to integrated services and personalised shopping from a reliable and trustworthy business. With these in place, businesses will have a clear advantage over their competitors.

Tag: #cloudMigration

Cloud Computing Advancing, According to New Statistics