NetApp has announced the results of its first industry research on cloud adoption in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The responses of 750 CIOs and IT managers identified hybrid cloud as the most common adoption – over half of all respondents indicate they are using a combination of private and public cloud.
More than half of the survey base also named security as a primary reason for adopting cloud, showing that trust in cloud providers continues to advance. Storage and backup ranked as the top use cases for cloud in all countries surveyed.
Respondents in all three areas prefer the hybrid cloud but they rely on different types of partners. Local service providers are the preferred hybrid cloud partner – as stated by a combined 26% of base respondents.
Other options like hyperscalers (18%) and larger cloud service providers or global system integrators (17%) are less popular.
Only 3% of all respondents claim they are not using any cloud services or are only planning towards using them.
These ‘cloud sceptics’ are not linked to a specific company size, industry vertical, or cloud strategy.
The survey found security and the cloud go together well. Over half of respondents – 56% – say that security is a primary motivation for cloud adoption.
This is evidence that trusting cloud providers with data is not perceived to be a security risk.
All countries also put flexibility (55%) and cost savings (54%) high on the list.
Storage and backup are top workloads in the cloud, while document control was the least popular cloud workload in all countries.
Data regulation remains a challenge. While many respondents are confident they have ‘some’, ‘good’, or ‘full’ understanding of the General Data Protection Regulation which comes into effect on May 25 2018, there are a number that admit they “don’t know what GDPR is”.
Fadi Kanafani, Regional Director Middle East and Africa, NetApp, said: “It is clear that IT leaders look to the cloud to boost agility and innovation. We believe that cloud-integrated data management is the crucial requirement to unlock this potential, making sure that customers harness any cloud with full control for maximum benefit. The result is security and simplicity at scale wherever data moves.”
Olaf Fischer, Managing Director, Claranet Germany, adds: “The survey results show that partnerships are key to bringing cloud services to the end customer. Our role within this is clearly defined – enterprises request a wide variety of services delivered at the highest level with maximum security.
“At the same time, the pace of innovation is rapid. With a hybrid cloud based on NetApp Private Storage we open the door to next-generation data services that give customers full insight into data location, public cloud integration, and strong compliance.”
Gregg Mearing, Head of Managed Services at Node4, said conversations with customers underline the findings: “Any enterprise consistently seeks to optimize its cost structures. But flexibility is just as important. Frankly, our customers don’t want to be locked in on premise and they don’t want to be locked into a public cloud. The NetApp Data Fabric is an elegant solution for this and gives the ability to switch between public clouds as needed. At the same time, there is 100% integration with our managed services portfolio, all virtually without CAPEX investment.”
NetApp delivers a Data Fabric to optimize the value of data in the cloud, whether customers run an on-premises IT environment that is poised for cloud capabilities, or are already using the hybrid cloud, or are fully committed to a public cloud infrastructure.
Research by NetApp about cloud adoption reveals over half the respondents indicate they are using a combination of private and public cloud
