Public cloud will become universally used by all businesses, and the sooner enterprises get on board the better, says Peter Job, CEO at leading IT optimisation consultancy, Intergence.
Job said he believes 20 to 30% of enterprises are now either thinking of cloud of have started deploying it, that in two years the majority of companies will be using the hybrid model, and not long after it will be complete business norm.
“I would say it’s one of, if not the, leading thing enterprises are considering right now. One of the challenges is people are scared that cloud computing is going to bypass the IT team altogether. So it probably needs a slight change of mindset, which is that the ability of the cloud is to give the whole business a more flexible approach than is currently available,” Job said.
“If the IT teams adopt that technology it’s actually a very good thing from a career perspective as well. Without a doubt cloud is coming so it’s better that all companies embrace the technology and know what’s out there so they can offer these services to their clients,” he added.
Job pointed to the lack of current companies offering cloud services as the reason why it is not more deployed in the Middle East yet.
“I think the Middle East has been quite quick at taking up the cloud, but there has been a lot of concerns about security and where the data sits. However, most of the arguments that we see now have moved on from that and cloud has become very much mainstream. The issue here is the ubiquity of the services – how many companies are are actually offering cloud services here?” he said.
“For example, you need to have good hosting if you’re going to provide good quality high-functionality cloud services, and we are a bit lacking on those here. But there are people building hosting services in the region and as soon as that happens then I think you’ll see a big take up,” he added.
Intergence proved it’s faith in cloud with the development of its product Hyperglance, which allows companies to see into the cloud and actually quantify the data and where it sits.
“The technology is certainly mature enough now. People know what they are doing, they know the security issues and how to get round that. Our product Hyperglance was built in the cloud, so we are really putting our money behind what we believe is great technology,” Job said.
“We saw some great cost benefits behind that and actually saved about 30% of our developments costs through building a lot of that technology in the cloud. One of the great things about the cloud is you get a lot more flexibility. It’s not just about cheapness; it’s also about being a lot more flexible in terms of the types of applications and services that you can get,” he added.
Job said he sees pay-as-you-go as the system to move cloud forward in the region.
“I think one of the reasons it hasn’t quite happened yet is the hosting centres. Four or five years ago you had utility computing, which was this concept where you could turn on and turn off particular applications when you need to use them on a pay-as-you-go basis. Cloud is really going to take off when there are companies offering real pay-as-you-go services and we think that’s probably only six to 12 months away,” he said.
He added that the hybrid form, which allows companies to have some areas in public cloud and some on-premise, will be the most popular and relevant in the region.
“With the hybrid you get the best of both worlds because what you can then do is construct a private cloud for data that is more sensitive, and for those applications you’re not so worried about, like email, you can host those in a public cloud. In the Middle East the hybrid is a great model because people are concerned about where certain data resides from a jurisdiction perspective,” he said.
