Posted on Friday, March 17, 2017 in Cloud Storage, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud, Storage
A new report from NetApp reveals the current state of cloud adoption for businesses operating in Europe. Researchers spoke to 750 CIOs across Germany, France and the United Kingdom to ascertain how cloud is being used – and the results make for grim reading for storage manufacturers.
In every country more than half of businesses are already using hybrid cloud, which comes as little surprise. The variations across the region were more interesting however; 69 percent of German businesses have adopted hybrid cloud platforms compared to just 58 percent in the UK.
Keeping it local
Even more unexpected was that 26 percent of businesses in all three countries prefer to source hybrid cloud services from local providers rather than hyperscalers like Microsoft, Amazon and Google. Whether this preference is based on cultural norms or perceptions of service and security is unclear, but it does provide hope for smaller cloud providers operating in Europe.
Cloud security and the GDPR paradox
Also interesting are the reasons behind cloud adoption in Europe. Cost savings were cited as being only third on the list of priorities (54 percent), after flexibility (55 percent) and security (56 percent). Having sensitive data protected by enterprise-grade security provisions without any additional capital outlay is hugely attractive after all.
When the issue of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation was raised with CIOs, the issue becomes much less clear. 10 percent of businesses in the UK “don’t know what GDPR is”, suggesting they are unprepared for how this legislation needs to be implemented and managed. It may be that these businesses (and those who claim they do understand the regulation) may simply be off-loading responsibility to the cloud, hoping that they will be covered by the provider (they won’t).
These unprepared businesses can also be found in France (nine percent) and Germany (eight percent) representing a small but significant minority. With just over a year until the GDPR goes live, it is unlikely that these organizations will be sufficiently resourced to negotiate the associated red tape and complete a move to the cloud on time (if that is what their strategy calls for).
Instead, they should concentrate on strengthening in-house provisions to ensure they are compliant in the short term. This will then buy breathing space before decisions need to be made about longer-term strategy. They will also benefit from having a single set of compliance guidelines to enforce initially.
Where CDS can help
With offices in the UK and Germany and a global network of more than 5000 field engineers, we are well placed to help. Our team can assist with hardware migrations, or provide post-warranty support for NetApp systems, buying you extra time to plan your future hybrid cloud deployment.
Next steps
To learn more about our services (we also support storage hardware from EMC, HPE and IBM among others), and our local field engineers, please get in touch.
– See more at: https://www.cds.net/blog/2017/03/netapp-survey-europe-hybrid-cloud-storage/#sthash.nbhl22VX.dpuf