A more compelling case for IaaS adoption

Monday, 10 July 2017 00:15 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is maturing, and attitudes to adoption are changing with it. Once outside the comfort zone of many IT leaders, modern enterprises are finally beginning to embrace IaaS—and you could too.

By Chris Chelliah

To better understand this cultural shift, we recently surveyed 1,600 IT leaders from different sectors across the EMEA and Asia Pacific (APAC) regions. Respondents included IaaS pioneers, established users, recent adopters, and organisations yet to implement IaaS at all.

Our report—You & IaaS: Learning from the Success of Early Adopters—explores how IaaS is helping users gain competitive advantage, and discover opportunities to innovate. It highlights how a long-term relationship with infrastructure-as-a-service generates greater performance benefits over time, and examines the negative preconceptions that remain a significant barrier to adoption.

We’ve also picked out five lessons from the IaaS pioneers—those who have laid the groundwork for IaaS adoption, encouraging companies like yours to follow suit.

Disrupt. Innovate. Outperform

According to our report, many senior IT professionals now see IaaS as a competitive priority. 61% of respondents believe IaaS is an essential part of any progressive cloud strategy, with almost half (47%) of businesses citing the world-class availability, uptime, and speed of IaaS as key incentives to adoption. But these aren’t the only benefits flagged by our respondents—62% say IaaS makes it easier to innovate, with this figure rising to almost seven in 10 users (68%) among early adopters.

Resistance remains

Despite the increasingly clear benefits of IaaS adoption, we found that negative attitudes remain. Almost half of our respondents—some 47%—claimed that negative perceptions within their organisation remain a powerful barrier to adoption. These concerns include the security of mission-critical data (50%), complexity of migration (48%), and a perceived loss of control over on-premises solutions (47%).

Winning hearts and minds

While it’s clear concerns still exist, our survey also reveals how attitudes to IaaS are changing among enterprise organisations. Crucially, recent IaaS adopters and those who have yet to embrace IaaS adoption are significantly less likely to encounter resistance. There are regional differences, too—Malaysian businesses (41%) are far less likely than Indian businesses (62%) to encounter resistance from colleagues.

Our findings tell an intriguing story about IaaS and its evolving role in supporting business transformation. Over time, the benefits of IaaS adoption help make a strong case for including IaaS in your progressive IT strategy.

You can read the complete report for a full breakdown of IaaS adoption, the benefits on offer, and shifting perceptions across the APAC region. And for a more succinct overview of the IaaS landscape, read our quick guide: 5 Lessons from the IaaS Pioneers. The quick guide reveals how IaaS adoption has become increasingly straightforward, with a new generation of suppliers delivering superior infrastructure solutions.

It’s no surprise that organisations are seizing the IaaS opportunity.

(The writer is Group Vice President & Chief Architect, Core Technology & Cloud, APAC.)