Although shifting enterprise IT infrastructure and assets to cloud-based architecture is a trend gathering momentum among enterprises worldwide, adoption among South African organisations has been dramatically slower than many other countries.
So says AJ Hartenberg, portfolio manager for data centre services at T-Systems in SA, who attributes the slower rate to a general business culture of conservatism and risk aversion.
"The myths are that one has to own the underlying infrastructure to have control over it, or that the information stored in cloud environments isn't secure," says Hartenberg. "The reality is that no matter the style of the cloud deployment, the data remains as secure as on-premises hosting, and the organisation has full control over those accessing the information."
In a recent cloud computing survey conducted by ITWeb and VMware, the majority of respondents cited cost, storage and security as the biggest reasons keeping them from rolling up parts of their business applications to the cloud.
Nonetheless, only a very small percentage (8%) of survey respondents indicated they are not considering moving parts of their business into the cloud, while 26% said it is a consideration.
According to the fourth annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2013-2018), African enterprises are steadily embracing cloud computing as the next big step in the advancement of the Internet. From 2013 to 2018, the Middle East and Africa are expected to have the highest cloud traffic growth rate (54% CAGR), followed by central and eastern Europe (39% CAGR) and Asia Pacific (37% CAGR), says Cisco.
Hartenberg says the most immediate benefit to consumption-based, cloud-delivered IT infrastructure is the reduction in procurement cycles.
"With cloud, the chief information officer can virtually provision new services within a matter of hours. Previously, the procurement and deployment phases may have taken months before the company could add new capacity, new applications, or new services.
"Shortening the delivery cycle essentially compresses the time to market - and moves the organisation closer to achieving the state of 'zero distance' between customer demands and customer fulfilment," he notes.
He adds organisations embracing the cloud revolution also enjoy the benefits of a flexible platform that fosters increased collaboration and innovation.
From a security point of view, says Hartenberg, organisations will ensure the integrity of their data with advanced features available on virtual private cloud architectures like segregated network security, certifications and client-owned encryptions to protect data.
He explains concerns over data privacy and security have traditionally been some of the key reasons holding back cloud adoption by South African enterprises - but these concerns are, in fact, a fallacy.
"Almost every industry today is being reshaped by new technologies, innovative market entrants and shifting customer demands. It's an era of uncertainty, but also of opportunity. Our digital age has given customers more choice, more information, and an ability to connect like never before," he concludes.