As cloud adoption skyrockets, doubts have been raised whether or not the market is as stable as sometimes supposed.
Cloud computing has been one of most explosive, disruptive IT trends of the last few years. Today’s most agile organisations are no longer managing infrastructure on premises, or buying floor space in third party data centres – instead, they’re paying for IT on an opex, as-a-service basis and getting unprecedented levels of security and scalability for their troubles.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), this paradigm shift is set to continue through 2014 with a 25 per cent increase in cloud spending – passing $100 billion (£61 billion) worldwide – by the end of the year.
This will be driven by more organisations transitioning to cloud services than ever before, with the IDC predicting 70 per cent of chief information officers will push for adoption over the next 12 months.
The picture isn’t all rosy, though. Some industry commentators are beginning to observe that as competition grows, many cloud providers are likely to find their business models unsustainable – and this might spell catastrophe for their clients.
Speaking at the Gartner Data Center conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, analyst William Maurer argued that by 2015, as many as 25 per cent of today’s top 100 cloud providers won’t be around any more – mostly through acquisition, but in some cases because of bankruptcy.
Belden’s Michael Salvador, who attended Mr Maurer’s address, summarised his points to InfoWorld: "We’re in the phase of buyer beware with cloud," he said. "You better do your research – there’s no safety net out there."
In light of this forecast, then, it’s important that if your organisation is looking to adopt the cloud, you think carefully about who you hire to look after your data. If your business assets end up with a provider that can’t guarantee it’ll be around in a few years, you could be looking at a costly transition to another supplier somewhere down the line – or worse, information being lost for good.
Here at Dajon, we’ve been looking after our clients’ data for over 30 years and our cloud and enterprise solutions are some of the most mature on the market. To discuss your organisation’s requirements, why not get in touch with us today?