Technology Reseller v36

01732 759725 06 TECH TRENDS CLOUD European cloud providers like King Canute, says SRG European cloud providers have been growing, but not at the same rate as demand, resulting in a significant fall in their share of the local market for IaaS, PaaS and Hosted Private Cloud, reveals new data from Synergy Research Group (SRG). The European market has grown more than threefold since the beginning of 2017, to € 5.9 billion in Q3 2020, yet European service providers’ share of it has fallen from 26% to less than 16%. Over the same period, the three leading global cloud providers – Amazon, Microsoft and Google – have increased their market share to 66%. Smaller US and Asian cloud providers that make up the balance are also steadily losing market share. Synergy estimates that full-year 2020 European cloud infrastructure service revenues (including IaaS, PaaS and hosted private cloud services) rose by 31% to more than € 23 billion in 2020. IaaS and PaaS services account for almost 80% of the market and are growing more rapidly than the smaller hosted or managed private cloud segment. John Dinsdale, a Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, describes the attempt of European cloud providers to gain more traction in the market by focusing on customer segments and use cases that have stricter data sovereignty and privacy requirements as ‘laudable’ but likely to be as effective as King Canute’s attempts to stop an incoming tide. He said: “The big three US cloud providers now have 67 hyperscale data centres in Europe and over 150 additional local points of presence, while the tier two US providers have another 36 major data centres. In total, their European capex over the last four quarters has totalled e 12 billion, up 20% from the previous four quarters. European firms are facing a huge challenge if they want to break out of their niche-like positions – the revenue growth opportunities are massive but so too is the funding and willpower required to tap into those opportunities.” Among European cloud providers, Deutsche Telekom is the leader, accounting for 2% of the market, followed by OVHcloud, Orange and a long list of national telcos and regional cloud and hosting specialists. srgresearch.com Businesses ignore shared responsibility model for cloud at their peril Trend Micro warns that the acceleration in digital transformation and cloud migration experienced by 88% of 2,565 decision-makers surveyed could be putting organisations at risk, as only 55% use third- party tools to secure cloud environments. This indicates potential gaps in their security and highlights a worrying lack of awareness of the Shared Responsibility Model for cloud, which makes customers responsible for securing their own data. While 92% of respondents are confident they understand their cloud security responsibility, 97% believe their cloud service provider offers sufficient data protection. Mark Nunnikhoven, Vice President of cloud research for Trend Micro, said: “Cloud adoption is not a ‘set it and forget it’ process, but takes ongoing management and strategic configuration to make the best security decisions for your business.” www.trendmicro.com Cloud connectivity shortcomings to drive SD-WAN take-up More than 70% of IT decision-makers surveyed for Barracuda Networks’ new report, Cloud networks: Shifting into hyperdrive , have plans to implement an SD-WAN solution in the next 12 months to address: latency and performance problems when running SaaS workloads like Microsoft 365 (cited by 70% of respondents); the challenge of ensuring seamless availability and ‘always on’ access to cloud applications (56%); and big increases in MPLS costs due to seasonal workload peaks (60%). More than 70% of those surveyed still use traditional access methods, such as MPLS, in their networks. Even though most respondents plan to invest in SD-WAN in the next 12 months, nearly 60% are hesitant about doing so because of their perceived complexity and expense. www.barracuda.com/sase-report www.barracuda.com/cloud-market www.barracuda.com/sdwan-report-2020 OUTSOURCING EMEA sourcing market bounces back in Q4 A strong bounceback in Q4 2020, driven by record demand for cloud-based services and a resurgence in managed services, propelled the EMEA sourcing market to a record annual contract value (ACV) of £15.1 billion in 2020, up 7% on the previous year’s figure. According to the latest EMEA ISG Index, which measures commercial outsourcing contracts with an ACV of £4m or more, the as-a-service market grew 15% in 2020 to £6.1 billion, with managed services growing 2% to £8.9 billion, despite a pandemic-induced slump in Q2. Within the managed services market, a 21% rise in IT outsourcing ACV to £7.7 billion offset a 50% drop in Business Process Outsourcing ACV to £1.2 billion. In cloud-based services, IaaS rose 23% to £4.5 billion, while SaaS ACV fell to £1.6 billion. www.isg-one.com Medium-sized firms most likely to outsource cybersecurity Only one in five businesses has a dedicated cybersecurity team in place, with 40% choosing to outsource at least some of these capabilities to external providers (source: STX Next Global CTO Sur vey ). Company size is a big factor in the approach taken: 80% of organisations with 1,000+ employees have a dedicated team, compared to 50% of organisations with 300-1,000 people. The pattern is reversed for outsourcing, with 75% of organisations with 300-1,000 employees making use of security outsourcers, compared to 60% of firms with 1,000+ employees. Organisations with 30 employees or fewer are least likely to have an internal security team or to outsource. www.stxnext.com DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Back to the drawing board for businesses’ transformation plans Almost two thirds (64%) of international businesses have scrapped existing transformation plans in light of the coronavirus pandemic and are now drawing up completely new ones, reveals a Tech trends: ICT in the UK today