Andrew Cruise, MD, Routed, a vendor neutral provider of cloud infrastructure, says that while there is an increase in cloud adoption within the enterprise, there is a shift in how these organisations are choosing to engage.

“While the RightScale State of the Cloud report states that hybrid cloud is a dominant enterprise strategy, locally we are seeing the sector shifting from being ‘all-in’ with a hyperscaler or native cloud provider, to a more measured hybrid cloud approach with providers such as VMware,” says Cruise.

He says that a hybrid cloud strategy, defined by Routed as combination of owned infrastructure and public cloud, enables an organisation to diversify spend and skills, build resiliency and carefully select features and proficiencies depending on where a vendor's strength lies. Doing this without any fear of the dreaded vendor lock-in.

“In line with this cloud-first strategy increase among the enterprise sector, we are seeing a need for a greater focus on establishing cloud Centres of Excellence. It is imperative that there are controls, tools and best practises available to help accelerate the use of cloud, while also trying to mitigate any costs or risks,” says Cruise.

It is here, he says, that South African Managed Service Providers (MSP) need to improve their focus and skills development: “The channel to support enterprise cloud migration and successful adoption is just not developed enough. There is a dire need for more highly skilled MSPs if we want cloud adoption to continue to grow.”

He says that globally, according to the Rightscale report, more than 66 percent of enterprise-sized organisations have formed central cloud teams with a further 21 percent planning one. The SME sector is less with 31 percent, however this is where MSPs could make a marked impact: “The local market is much smaller and thus our penetration rates would be different. But what it does show is that we need to address the development of a cloud-centric channel for all involved to succeed.”

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