Cloud computing: Still waiting for explosive growth

2013, the cloud market continued to move forward. Some of the market's predictions have come true, but others are still waiting to come true. The main direction of cloud development is changing, more and more people are paying attention to the cloud domain specialization, personalized solutions and the development of enterprise cloud strategy.

As large providers such as Google and Microsoft continue to bring cloud technology into people's lives, no one thinks cloud computing is a new thing in the business world. Globally, there is less and less concern about working in a cloud environment.

InformationWeek's data show that, in 2012, not less than 45% of the company cloud potential users to show concern about the cloud working environment. Russia's corporate users are no exception, and in 2012-2013 the number of private cloud projects in Russia was limited, as did large cloud service providers in Russia and other countries.

Cloud Services is one of the most dynamic industries in the IT market. According to IDC, the cloud services market will grow much faster than the entire IT service sector. By 2016, the global cloud services market will be more than 460 billion trillion dollars, the annual composite growth rate will reach 50.8%.

According to Forrester Survey Company, the global IT market growth rate will reach 8%. This shows that the global IT industry tilt to the cloud industry is obvious.

Special Solutions

To succeed in the cloud arena, large cloud service providers have banded together to provide a sophisticated hardware platform for cloud customers with integrated software. The VCE alliance is a good example, and the VCE Alliance (CISCO, EMC, and VMware) is introducing a solution to the market for building a private cloud. Ruslan-Zayekinov, deputy general manager of Russia's croc company, director of data center and cloud computing department, said, "It vendors will not shut down system integration, they will continue to choose the development cooperation model, to provide customers with comprehensive services, including storage and data backup services, Used to ensure disaster recovery and commercial security. "

Public cloud services are also undergoing significant changes, particularly in terms of wider service coverage and more flexible service formats for customers. "An important development trend in the public cloud sector is that providers continuously provide high quality and high demand applications and services to market customers, expanding the content of cloud services to achieve important business functions," says Sergei Sherbin, vice general manager of CIS.

PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS who wins?

The important development direction of cloud environment is to change the basic concept of service delivery. Verchevallotte-YEGUPOV, CIS company ICT Sales Manager, said: "The biggest demand in Russia is IaaS (infrastructure, service), which is related to the willingness of customers to manage their systems independently, premised on the existence of a large number of pirated software and the widespread distrust of the market by customers".

Figure 1 IaaS ratio in the Russian cloud services market

Source: IBS, 2012

It is understandable that large companies adopt relatively conservative infrastructure, and they do not want to lose the advantage of having their own unique environment. As a result, they habitually consider the possibility of acquiring sophisticated computing power rather than specific software services. Custis Systems Engineering manager Dmitri Morozov explained, "for large enterprises, IT management spending to change the status quo is equivalent to creating a customized solution." Customized solutions should be more popular with businesses, given the potential loss of the uniqueness of business processes.

Both in the Russian and global markets, SaaS and public clouds are growing steadily. This is because it is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to create their own infrastructure. Mature Cloud products enable SMEs to find solutions to the difficulties, cloud solutions can help their products and services quickly into the market.

Forrester expects the global cloud solution market to reach $93 billion trillion by 2016, with SaaS as the largest market share. Analysts at IDC, Russia, say that in the near future, the Russian public cloud market will spend more than 50% per cent on SaaS spending. At present, companies in the market are beginning to realize that PAAs and SaaS models are more advantageous than ordinary virtual machines that provide platform services, said Mark Rivkin, head of technical consulting at Oracle.

Private cloud or mixed cloud?

Figure 2 Russian Cloud solutions market preferences

Source: Almer and Quinstreet Enterprise, 2013

In fact, Russia's cloud services are by no means confined to the public cloud. "The growing demand for hybrid clouds is becoming a major trend for the Russian cloud services market," said Nicolas Prianyshnikv, president of Microsoft (Russia). Many companies now have their own more sophisticated IT infrastructure and data-processing centers, so for these companies, the cloud transition path should be to build a hybrid cloud solution.

But that does not mean that private cloud market share will shrink. On the contrary, private cloud market share will gradually expand. Because private clouds can provide a higher level of security than public clouds. For companies, it's easier for them to be compatible with non-standard solutions and get better control. Public clouds lack clear restrictions on handling confidential information, such as personal data. Regulators are not yet clear on the principles of information processing, which will hamper the development of the public cloud services market in the corporate sector.

Growth motivation and propensity to consume

The growth in cloud service penetration is not just an economic factor. Today, people are increasingly using a variety of mobile devices-smartphones, tablets, notebooks-and are processing information in new ways. If the company wants to provide access to the company's information system to its employees ' mobile devices, the simplest solution is the cloud. Original Group development manager Dmitri Shamshurin points out that "cloud services can remotely solve a variety of similar problems and manage business from any corner of the world, and the key is that cloud services are always practical, stable and inexpensive".

In the background of frequent replacement of various equipments, the data carding mode is also changing. Aleks-Bezarapski, marketing manager for Mango Telecom, Russia, said, "in the current market, cloud service consumption tends to be obvious." Instead of repeating traditional functions, cloud services provide the enterprise with a whole new set of features, such as Business intelligence. At the same time, the type of cloud products on the market is expanding.

Close to the cloud.

Overall, the idea of a transition to cloud technology has changed radically. In the past, companies were faced with the question of whether to need the cloud, and now companies are thinking about which tasks to choose for which cloud. It is the change of attitude towards new technology that is the main reason for the positive development of cloud market and the continuous emergence of cloud services companies.

In recent years, there have been many companies offering various kinds of cloud services in the Russian market. Contrary to expectations, the companies that provide cloud services are not communication providers, but independent companies that provide more flexibility and are better suited to SME solutions. As security issues are resolved and confidential information processing rules become clearer, Russian cloud services will accelerate popularity.

January 7, 2013: "Russia" cnews

Compiling: Center for international Economic and Technical cooperation, Ministry of Industry and Information technology Zhang Dongyang

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)