Cloud providers understand that you’ve made significant investment in your on-premise and data centre operations. They know that you’re probably not all that ready to rip everything out and move everything to the cloud. This is why there have been some major initiatives regarding optimising the way businesses connect privately into the public cloud.

The rate of cloud adoption has increased rapidly, with more and more computing being pushed into the cloud, a trend identified in Serviceteam IT’s Cloud Snapshot Survey 2017. This growth in cloud computing has led to the development of networks of large data centres. However, this is already starting to slow, with an ever-increasing amount of computing moving back to the ‘edge’ of local networks. Processing will always occur wherever it is best placed for a given application at a given time and cloud has given us flexibility of computing resources; but we can’t help but think that reliable, elastic and on-demand networking is imperative to deliver the future.

Cloud may be the heart of many companies’ infrastructure but it would be nothing without the veins of connectivity that keep the data flowing. The UK Cloud Snapshot Survey 2017 asked what cloud connection companies use to access their cloud solutions. This was split out from their normal office connectivity unless they relied on an open public cloud connection.

Cloud Platforms & Applications: Most UK companies are working with a hybrid cloud approach and with multiple vendors, in combination with in house data centres for their cloud platform. Adoption of cloud is now varied and widespread, as the research from the UK Cloud Snapshot Survey 2017 demonstrates. The survey asked what platforms were being used for delivery of cloud based solutions.