There are an increasing number of applications being adopted by businesses that are born in the cloud. The research undertaken by Serviceteam IT looked at why companies had adopted Cloud. Across the industry, vendors tend to lead with the message of flexibility and cost savings. Flexibility and scalability of IT resources certainly are considered the largest driving factors to cloud adoption within the survey base.
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.
Cloud has become the buzzword in not only the technology sector, but across all industries. At the same time, the uncertainty regarding cloud adoption is also increasing due to the multitude of problems currently facing the UK. Such challenges include the implementation of GDPR, the uncertainty of Brexit and the unprecedented increase in cyber security attacks.
The promise of business insight from Big Data through quality analytics is now a reality in most businesses. Cloud analytics is a service model in which elements of the data analytics process are provided through a public or private cloud and it has been adopted by a third of the survey respondents.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is clearly the largest external focus for companies in the lead up to its introduction in May 2018. GDPR mandates considerably tougher penalties than the current Data Protection Act; organisations found in breach of the Regulation can expect administrative fines of up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 million – whichever is greater. Fines of this scale could very easily lead to business insolvency.
In the three months since the research undertaken by Serviceteam IT, which explored the impact of the external challenges that businesses face in 2017 and beyond, the uncertainly has not changed. The uncertainty of Brexit, the introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the rise of cyber-crime, and most importantly Data Sovereignty.
UK business, infrastructure and government face an unprecedented level of threat from cyber-security attacks. The new National Cyber-Security Centre (NCSC) contended with 480 major incidents in its first 8 months, from global ransomware outbreaks to smaller breaches at British businesses, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.
The predicted immediate economic slump has not materialised but there are growing signs that the uncertainty around BREXIT is having a detrimental effect on UK business. BREXIT was identified as the third most pressing issue after GDPR and cyber-security for respondents to the survey conducted by Serviceteam IT.
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