There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the course of cloud adoption in the enterprise. Predictably, we are seeing an acceleration in the uptake of cloud services, both locally and globally.
The initial response to the pandemic was tactical − it was about how to mobilise the workforce so an organisation could stay productive. But now we are seeing a more strategic response. This is for a number of reasons, says Dave Funnell, Cloud Provider manager at VMware, Sub-Saharan Africa. “Firstly, to survive businesses’ need to become even more competitive in their market and the cloud is a way to accelerate the development of new applications.”
He says perhaps even more importantly, a shorter term goal is to manage liquidity. “Moving to a cloud operating model allows for the benefits of moving to an opex model, avoiding large capital outlays and leveraging resources as and when required, so only paying for what is absolutely necessary.”
Interestingly, Funnell says locally he has seen the trend of organisations repatriating workloads from the public hyperscale clouds onto locally hosted private clouds, often due to the predictability of costs.
Currency rate fluctuations are the bane of the CFO’s life, so moving into a locally operated cloud that delivers the same operating model, but with rand-based pricing, often on a more economic pricing model, is very compelling, he says.
“Until now, many organisations have been working out how they will move to the cloud, seeing it as a destination rather than potential new platforms for incorporating into their operating model,” Funnell adds.
Looking ahead, he says we will see a maturing of both migration exercises and then the operating model for consuming cloud services as they become mainstream. “The consensus among the analyst firms is that most organisations will evolve to a hybrid multi-cloud model. This has been forecast for a while, but we will start seeing the reality of what this looks like and why it works both for the traditional applications that businesses operate today and the cloud native applications of tomorrow.”
As this model matures, he says we will see the explosion of edge services that link into the various cloud platforms, with even more focus on a modernised networking and transformed security model for the secure delivery of application services.
Funnell will be presenting a keynote, entitled ‘The successful cloud’, during an ITWeb Cloud Webinar sponsored by VMware on 10 November at 9 am. He will discuss how cloud is powering digital transformation, and will unpack how to get to the cloud rapidly to support your business with a successful and sustainable operating model for application delivery.
In addition, attendees will learn about the latest cloud trends as well as the value of a private cloud now that the public cloud hyperscalers are located in South Africa. Finally, he will discuss how to manage operations, networks and security across the hybrid multi-cloud, and how to avoid the pitfalls that others have made to ensure a successful migration.
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