IDC Cloud & Datacenter Roadshow

Digital transformation (DX) imperatives are driving organizations to deploy a broad range of cloud services ranging from private cloud, hosted private cloud to public cloud in a multi-cloud architecture. This multi-cloud platform forms the foundation of innovation. However, it also creates fresh challenges for CIOs in terms of security and manageability. IDC discusses about the changes in Middle East cloud scenario as we move into a multi-cloud environment. We also take a look at the future of Cloud 2.0 and the new market opportunities and challenges that it will bring along.

Although organizations typically source cloud services from on-premises datacenters, the simultaneous spike in both cloud adoption and data volumes is spurring cloud providers to quickly address latency and performance issues. A preferred solution is using distributed cloud, which involves multiple distributed edge clouds in addition to a central cloud and allows for faster provision of services to users due to increased proximity.

For many decision makers, functional benefit is a key decision-making criterion for a cloud. Costs and governance efforts are also critical aspects, but they are often not considered in their full range. However, organizations are still not placing as much emphasis on cloud sustainability efforts that can help to cut costs, drive efficiencies in electricity, heat, and resource usage, and reduce the size of their carbon footprints.

As cloud usage continues to expand across the region, organizations are seeking specific skills and expertise within several IT areas that currently rank high on the priority list for future training. A concerted effort is needed from technology and service providers, industry users, governments, and other stakeholders to ensure that appropriately trained talent is available to support the digital enterprise needs of both today and tomorrow.

As business models shift from physical to digital, the ability to gather, analyze, protect, leverage, and move data while complying with regulations and adhering to governance is becoming critical to the success of businesses. Datacenters have evolved to meet the needs of the digital world, making them more adaptable, intelligent, autonomous, sustainable, and resilient, which is fueling investment in modernized facilities.

As the migration to cloud continues to accelerate at a rapid pace, this newfound dependence on cloud has ushered in a plethora of new security concerns. While cloud simplifies data management, it increases security vulnerabilities such as network eavesdropping, breaching, DDoS attacks, virtualization vulnerabilities, and cloud service abuse, prompting security professionals to re-examine their strategies.

Banks that primarily rely on legacy systems end up having to create layers of customization atop outdated architecture to add functionality. This inevitably makes them slow to respond to changing market needs, increases the prevalence of operational risks, and introduces scalability challenges. Furthermore, updates to legacy systems require talent that is in short supply, take time to develop, and are costly to maintain. This architecture perpetuates data silos, making data management difficult and almost impossible to leverage using modern analytics tools. Banks that hesitate to migrate critical workloads to the cloud will risk losing customers to more modern, cloud-based banking services.