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EDITOR’S QUESTION
SACHIN BHARDWAJ,
DIRECTOR MARKETING AND
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT,
EHOSTING DATAFORT
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W
hen you look around and observe
the pace at which organisations
are moving towards the cloud
for scalability, flexibility and efficiency,
the numbers are only increasing. To stay
competitive, businesses need to be agile and
the cloud provides many tangible benefits.
According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index, it
projects that Middle East and Africa cloud data
centre traffic will grow 440% by 2020. It also
suggests that by 2020, 95% of all workloads
in Middle East and Africa will be processed in
the cloud, compared to 78% in 2015.
From being able to go to market quicker, to
applying the mechanics of Big Data and AI, or
ensuring that there is a continuous process for
higher IT security, multi-cloud and its benefits
are entering every single realm of businesses.
And those that lag behind will most definitely
not be in a position to brace themselves for
growth and innovation.
There is also an influx of technology
trends that are setting the growth path
for data centre operations as well as cloud
computing. These include aggressive
digitisation, connected devices and the high
penetration levels of mobility into the work
force which makes it critical for companies to
ready themselves for multi-cloud adoption.
Any slow-down in implementing the right
systems and process will have a negative
impact on their ability to stay competitive.
Many companies are working towards
market expansion to grow their business.
However, several laws and regulations as
well as organisational policies determine
the way they conduct business. In order
to circumvent any negative impacts, it
is necessary to have their data located
in designated locations which can be
addressed by adopting a multi-cloud
approach. Failure to do this limits the
possibilities of geographical expansion
and lowers the service options for end-
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users who are looking to achieve optimum
performance. Some organisations find it a
daunting task to move to the cloud, however,
they have the option to partner with a
cloud service provider who can analyse,
implement and manage their needs. Service
providers help in reducing operational costs
and also align the business expansion with
multi-regional services. Many of them are
also equipped to provide Disaster Recovery
services which helps in reducing down-time.
Simultaneously, the pay-as-you-go option
is particularly relevant to small, medium
businesses as well as start-ups and the
service providers help them move away
from CAPEX to an OPEX model. It is also
very important that organisations keep their
data and systems safe, ensure timely security
updates, have real time monitoring and trace
and respond to incidents. Service providers
are equipped to provide infrastructure,
manpower and skills that are needed to
remain secure.
To summarise the benefits and adoption
of multi-cloud, it provides a much more
efficient IT infrastructure, enables greater
flexibility, avoids vendor lock-ins, reduces IT
costs and improves security and compliance
and organisations must move quickly to
ensure that they reap the benefits.
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