Up in the Clouds
In this data driven age, cloud computing has quickly become a boon for businesses looking to cut costs and increase agility. Cloud computing vendors offer an array of tech solutions and services that allow companies to outsource all of their I.T demands over the internet (“the cloud”). The market is currently dominated by 3 major providers, AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft) and Google’s Cloud Platform.
The industry can largely be split into 3 categories, IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), BaaS (Back-end as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service), supporting clients with on-demand services including analytics, servers, storage, databases, intelligence , software and networking. Businesses only pay for the services they use, allowing for considerable discounts toward operating costs and providing flexibility as a company scales its activities.
Since the Industry’s inception, demand has grown exponentially. Gartner research valued global revenues for 2018 at over $182 billion and expect the market to expand 17.5 percent in 2019. AWS has lead the market since 2006, with market share estimates between 40 and 50 percent. However, Microsoft’s Azure has gained some ground recently, bringing in swathes of Fortune 500 companies to its client roster. Global demand is set to increase to over $330 billion by 2022, presumably attracting other major organisations with similar expertise to take advantage of these potential revenue streams.
Despite these promising figures, there is still much skepticism towards cloud based services and while UK based enterprises rate of consumption is around 42 percent, the average figure for EU businesses combined was only at 26 percent. Barriers to increasing cloud adoption are varied, from concerns regarding the security of data, to loss of control over IT services. Heavily regulated industries are also bound by more nuanced compliance issues and as such, have yet to adapt policies that allow for greater utilisation of a vendor’s cloud based systems.
As with many new technologies, there is a lack in the number of skilled professionals able to provide the expertise to fully exploit these cloud services. Navigating the infrastructure can involve a steep learning curve and the demand for these technicians is high. Cloud System Engineers and Architects can command some of the highest salaries in Tech and this will undoubtedly increase along with the demand for this knowledge.
As organisations become more dependent on cloud-related services there will be a greater corporate focus on transforming their operations and system infrastructure, particularly as the paradigm shifts between on- and off-site IT solutions. Today, almost 19 percent of all cloud budgets are spent on cloud-related services, such as cloud implementation, migration and consulting, and Gartner expects that this will rise to 28 percent by the end of 2022.
With cloud based systems continuing to become more mainstream within most businesses, technology product managers implementing cloud infrastructure service offerings will need to concentrate on providing solutions that combine efficiency, scalability and experience in order to drive the further growth. The combined approach of constant innovation driven by cloud service vendors and effective consultancy and client support will continue to revolutionise and transform standard business practises and help to optimise an organisation’s infrastructure and operations.
