Media Coverage | Cloud deployment: 70% see benefits
Rust Report
A new Tecala survey reveals that more than 70 per cent of Australian organisations have experienced cost savings as a result of cloud computing deployments, with 69 per cent of companies planning to maintain or increase their budget for cloud computing by mid-2012.
Sydney-based ICT infrastructure and solutions provider, Tecala, surveyed 113 IT decision makers at the recent EMC Inform events in Melbourne and Sydney, learning that more than one in four organisations (26 per cent) will migrate their desktop infrastructure to the cloud by the middle of next year.
An overwhelming 95 per cent of survey respondents felt that the benefits of cloud deployment far outweigh any potential risks. However, 32 per cent of those companies choosing not to migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud in the next year cited risks in potential bandwidth consumption, while 25 per cent cited the chance for latency and poor user experience issues as inhibitors. Eighteen per cent of companies feared a security risk by moving to cloud infrastructure, with more than one in three (37 per cent) organisations believing that public clouds are less secure than private clouds.
As the debate about cloud computing enters the boardroom agenda, 21 per cent of respondents feel they are under greater pressure from top management within their companies to procure cloud services in the year ahead. However, 16 per cent of respondents also believe that cloud computing will reduce their IT team’s headcount.
In terms of overall IT expenditure, the survey found that 23 per cent of Australian organisations plan to invest in virtualisation technology in the year ahead, while 18 per cent of organisations will invest in cloud computing and 16 per cent in storage technologies. Only eight per cent will invest in green IT, seven per cent in mobility and five per cent in Unified Communications.
Finally, the survey found that when choosing an IT services provider, end users cite the vendor’s breadth of service and product portfolio, as well as its security and adherence to privacy standards as key selection factors. Slightly less important factors were the quality of the local support and service team as well as price.
“It’s clear that organisations are increasingly highlighting cloud computing as a major lever for IT change and investigating its ability to maximise core infrastructure, improve service levels, lower ongoing IT costs, increase agility and enhance user experience and employee profitability”, says Gleuto Serafim, CEO, Tecala.
“At the same time, the survey has provided a wake-up call to vendors to ensure that they have the expertise to offer a broad range of technologies, and that their people and processes are agile enough to continually serve the evolving needs of today’s businesses as they embrace new technologies for efficiency and collaboration”.
Also commenting on the results of the new Tecala survey was Chris Moyle, EMC Australia’s Channel Manager: “The Australian market was one of the first developed IT markets to adopt the notion of external service providers, so it’s not surprising that Australian businesses are embracing the deployment of cloud computing. However, as the survey reveals, businesses are demanding cloud technology from vendors who have a best-of-breed approach and a strong partner, such as Tecala, to assist customers on their journey to the cloud and to provide peace of mind. Trust in the cloud is a key factor for businesses when determining how much data goes into the public cloud and what stays in the private cloud. Our experience when helping customers is that they require both private and public clouds – so more of a converged, or hybrid cloud approach,” commented Moyle.
“However its level of innovation is not keeping pace with the rest of the market – it is doing just enough to stay in the game, but is not a star performer”. Although information management software will experience the strongest growth, Ovum’s figures show all the sectors will enjoy a healthy outlook. The security software market will grow by a CAGR of 10 per cent from 2010 to 2015, while applications software will grow by a CAGR of 9.7 per cent for the same period.
Jennings continued: “Organisations are breaking away from the shackles of desktop IT, and providing mobile workers with access to systems from any location and any device. The mobile revolution will generate strong demand for mobile applications, as well as for the development and management platforms to support this shift. Although it is still relatively early days for cloud computing, growth will accelerate over the next five years, as organisations move further towards a software-as-a-service model and take their data centres towards the hybrid combination of public and private cloud infrastructure. This will generate new demand for both infrastructure and application services”.
The emerging markets will also make a substantial contribution to the strong growth the software sector is set to experience. Jennings added: “Emerging markets around the world have an insatiable appetite for technology-driven expansion, often unencumbered by the constraints of peers in mature markets”.