According to research by consultancy leader Gartner, 85% of enterprises are set to embrace a cloud-first approach by 2025. This seismic shift demands not just a nod to the cloud but a holistic adoption of cloud-native architectures. Yet, in the rush to ‘embrace the cloud,’ even the savviest of organisations overlook the critical importance of optimising their virtual estate.
The true measure of success in 2024 lies in striking the right balance across finance, security, and productivity. So, what lessons should businesses carry into the new year? Amongst a backdrop of trials and tribulations, catch three of this year’s biggest reflections, to help propel innovation, performance and resilience over the coming months…
From customer service chatbots to cybersecurity and data analytics, AI applications have made major ripples in the tech space this year. As businesses pivot in tandem with the trend, the need for hardware equipped to meet the greater number, and more sophisticated variations, of servers that underpin new workloads is more crucial than ever.
So, how can firms make these physical infrastructure changes? Retrofitting is one option. But it’s not for the faint-hearted. With more associated costs, it can have a major impact on the financial feasibility of AI-powered hardware and can raise concerns about maintenance, support warranties, security breaches, and ESG commitments too.
That’s where cloud has emerged as a leading hosting alternative. For early adopters leveraging economies of scale, public clouds can pay dividends for those testing the waters on their usage, while colocation or private clouds cater to unique, long-term requirements. And Deloitte’s 2023 survey leaves no room for doubt on its impact, with cloud data centres claiming a robust 73% stand tall among the technologies delivering the most return on investment for firms this year.
The evolution from a best-of-breed approach to a multi-cloud strategy marks a paradigm shift in how businesses choose to host their services. But the advantages of the latter are manifold — agility, flexibility, security, and liberation from the shackles of vendor lock-in, to name a few.
The Competition and Market Authority's ongoing probe into the cloud market, sparked by a referral from Ofcom, represents one of the most significant step changes in the space – aiming to dismantle the current monopolisation by major hyperscalers.
Spurred by concerns around egress fees, discounts, and interoperability challenges faced by businesses, the investigation is set to conclude by 2025. Above all else, it holds the promise of unlocking the maximum benefits of digital markets for individuals, businesses, and the UK economy.
Research from Enterprise Strategy Group's Melinda Marks and Jon Oltsik made for stark reading recently, exposing the vulnerability of cloud environments. An alarming 99% of security professionals surveyed faced a cloud-focused cyber attack in the past 12 months.
These incidents ranged from misconfigured cloud services and workloads to insider breaches and malicious malware attacks. Of course, these threats aren’t anything new. So, why are so many organisations getting caught in the crosshairs?
Tunnel vision. With a laser sharp focus on digitising workloads at pace and identifying development opportunities, tech leaders – no matter how forward-thinking – continue to let ‘securing the foundations’ fall off the radar. Much like on-prem hardware, cloud estates demand stringent cyber security measures to safeguard entry points and protect systems and data from growing threats – not least because the attack surface is almost infinite.
From the importance of cloud decommissioning and how to prevent spiralling IT costs to advocating backup best practices for SMEs, it’s a topic we’ve penned several pieces about this year, and one we’ll continue to champion in 2024 and beyond.
Ready to lead the charge? Get in touch with our tech-agnostic experts to start redefining your cloud strategy.
