Azure, AWS & Co.: Why More and More Are Getting on Board.
The public cloud has gone mainstream: Forecasts predict that more than 90 percent of all workloads will be processed in cloud data centers this year - most of them in the public cloud. The most important reason for the popularity of the cloud is the ability to access data from anywhere - and precisely this is one of the most important achievements of the digital age.
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It is an invisible but ubiquitous tool that helps many companies to find success in the digitization process. The public cloud, provided by Microsoft (Azure), Amazon (AWS), Google, IBM and Co., offers many advantages over on-premise IT. The three most important are: increased innovation capabilities, more agility, and almost unlimited scalability. This means that IT can respond much faster and more accurately to a company's needs. Much of the efficiency gains from public cloud platforms come from the fact that they allow targeted optimization and therefore can be deployed highly effectively.
Less effort, reduced costs
Large and small companies are better able to afford the cloud and its services because they do not have to pay operating and maintenance costs for its basic provision; investments are minimal. The public cloud is based on the fact that cloud resources are shared by numerous users - as a result, the services cost less than if they were provided by individual companies. Another big advantage is the fact that users of public cloud services are not responsible for maintaining the cloud, so the cloud provider is responsible for recovery in the event of a failure. Last but not least, those who work with the public cloud can monitor computing power, network utilization and other metrics of data processing in real time. This means that the necessary numbers can be accessed at any time to plan the cloud strategy going forward.
Currently, the cloud is a $36 billion business
According to technology market research firm Canalys[i] the global cloud market at the end of October 2020 was worth $36.5 billion. AWS had a 32 percent market share, Azure was at 19 percent market share, and Google Cloud was at 7 percent. (If Microsoft's Office 365, which delivers software as a service via public cloud, were included in these statistics, Microsoft would be at the top of the rankings). The rest of the cloud market is shared by other vendors. These include Alibaba, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce and SAP.
There is no doubt that the public cloud will continue to grow: Among other things, it allows for the kind of collaboration that has been necessitated by the move from the business office to the office at home. This trend is certain to continue for quite some time. In the future, businesses and their employees will thrive on using and sharing data efficiently, everywhere, and independently. It is the cloud, and especially the public cloud, that makes this possible.
The cloud is secure and promotes collaboration
Incidentally, the public cloud is still most commonly used in combination with in-house cloud infrastructures, i.e. as a hybrid cloud[ii]. It can therefore be assumed that many companies are, to a certain extent, still in a cloud transition phase. Among other things, this has to do with the fact that the public cloud is still regarded by some potential users as less secure than in-house infrastructures. However, these doubts are not shared by a large majority of CIOs - on the contrary. An IDG survey[iii] recently revealed that managers in charge value the cloud not only for its flexibility at various levels, but also for its high level of security. This is also evident in the many companies that are moving their file and email servers to the cloud. In October 2020, Microsoft announced that Office 365 on its own had reached 200 million active users.
The Office cloud creates 30 billion collaborative minutes a day
According to Microsoft, the growth of the Office cloud has been very constant [iv]; it amounts to around 3 million users per month since November 2015. Microsoft Office, in particular, shows how enormously important the public cloud has been (and continues to be) for many companies to cope with the pandemic - particularly the collaborative aspects of the cloud. According to Satya Nadella, in the first quarter of the new fiscal year, Microsoft 365 users generated more than 30 billion collaborative minutes in a single day using Teams. At that point, in late October, Teams already had more than 115 million daily active users.
Switzerland and UMB offer excellent cloud options
UMB AG can provide you with a wide range of cloud services. As an independent cloud provider, we are able to determine the right cloud platform for you based on your requirements. Our partnership with Microsoft and our expertise in the Azure cloud also ensure that the services from the Swiss Azure cloud will reach you. Our services will leave you with more time for your core business. From us, you can expect an efficient team as well as well-established partnerships with manufacturers and distributors. Contact us if you would like to know more about our cloud services and the Azure cloud.
[ii] https://www.umb.ch/en/blog/news/detail/put-the-cloud-on-your-wish-list
[iii] IDG Studie Hybrid IT 2021: Download
[iv] https://office365itpros.com/2020/10/28/teams-115-million-users/
