Read “Verizon State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud” and discover how businesses are using the cloud; the role cloud plays in achieving business goals; the impact cloud is having on IT and the future of the cloud.
Gavan Egan, Managing Director, Cloud Solutions, Verizon Enterprise SolutionsDiscussion about the promise of cloud services has remained high on the corporate agenda since the cloud concept first came to prominence some years ago. It would seem that the promise has been delivered, and organizations are now focused on reaping the rewards of cloud-based solutions. Verizon research, undertaken at the end of 2014, saw that 65 percent of enterprises were already using cloud services as part of their IT delivery portfolios. Since then, momentum has accelerated, with Verizon’s own cloud customer base increasing by 10 percent in the first three months of 2015.
Verizon launched Verizon Cloud and Storage to the marketplace back in 2013 and was one of the first providers to shake up preconceived perceptions of what cloud solutions should be and what they could deliver. We like to think we played a key role in changing the way enterprise clouds were built, with the aim of reinventing new business models and generating economies of scale, and, most importantly, putting the choice back into our customers hands.
Since then, Verizon has supported its commitment to customers by investing in its global footprint and capacity. We’ve expanded our offering in Europe — Verizon Storage is now available in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London plus Verizon Cloud is readily available out of Amsterdam and London — providing greater resilience and regional delivery capabilities. In addition, this year we announced the expansion of our cloud services in Asia-Pacific, expanding our offering to Melbourne, Hong Kong and Singapore. It’s all about meeting the expanding demand for secure, enterprise-grade cloud capabilities.
The Face of Cloud Today
Cloud technology has come of age — it’s no longer a question of if organizations are moving to the cloud but when and how. In the beginning, the cloud was a great resource to test and develop new products. Cloud offered the ‘pay-as-you-go’ opportunity to expand and experiment without the need of heavy IT investment. But times and customer requirements have changed and the cloud is entering a new age of definition.
The cloud environment is now the center of customer-facing and business-critical applications. It is driving productivity, and is no longer a platform just to practice on and test potential applications. It is a medium to drive efficiencies direct to the customer and back into the business. Managed services are a critical component to this ongoing development. Cloud is the default delivery platform for organizations fueled by the growth of data and new technologies, such as the Internet of Things.
The Cloud Tipping Point
But has cloud service reached its pinnacle of usage and evolution?
We think not. Cloud will continue to transform how business operates and is shaped. What will change is how the cloud operates. Previously, businesses used their own in-house IT teams to manage cloud-based services, which involved time, maintenance costs and also required increasingly advanced specialist knowledge.
The future will see the cloud become a managed service, operated by external partners. These partners will be able to deliver the specialist skills, added value services, security and 24/7 management capabilities needed to build and maintain the enterprise cloud, and organizations will be able to reallocate their in-house resources to focus on strategic business initiatives.
Read “Cloud: Driving a Faster, More Connected Business” for insight on the latest cloud trends, benefits, and top concerns, plus best practices for cloud technology management to help you get the results you want.
Visit Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ Cloud Portfolio to learn more about how to choose the right cloud for your enterprise organization.
Read “Verizon State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud” and discover how businesses are using the cloud; the role cloud plays in achieving business goals; the impact cloud is having on IT and the future of the cloud.
