According to the study “The State of Cloud Acceptance by SMBs” , conducted by Paessler, cloud adoption by small and medium-sized companies is growing. The trend is that business applications will become more complex than usual as they migrate to the cloud in the coming months.
The survey interviewed 2,000 entrepreneurs, 63.5% of whom were from companies with fewer than 500 employees. The results showed that the migration to the cloud by small and medium-sized companies is underway and will inevitably grow. The adoption of BYOD (bring-your-own-device), which is already a more common practice, and the growth of cloud computing should forever change the way small businesses deal with IT.
Content
Migration still conservative
Specific solutions
Obstacles
Migration still conservative
SMEs are more open to cloud alternatives. Most are confident in the cloud and plan to expand their IT services in the cloud in the coming years. Overall, respondents expressed a positive cpa mailing lists personal opinion about the cloud, with 80.1% saying they would adopt a cloud strategy. However, the migration to the cloud remains conservative. The results showed that the most popular functions are web hosting, blogging and content management (39.2%), email (32%) and file sharing (32.2%).
Specific solutions
Respondents also cited an interest in solutions specific to their business, planning to deploy a completely different set of cloud capabilities in 2018, involving network monitoring (34.6%), backup (33.9%), sales, CRM and ticketing systems (35.4%).
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Obstacles
Entrepreneurs who are still wary of adopting the cloud say that the main factors preventing them from using it more widely are data security, with 44.7% saying it is a major obstacle, lack of cloud knowledge (32.9%), cost (27.5%) and lack of manpower (24.2%).
Another factor that can be a concern for small businesses is paying in dollars. Most large cloud storage providers charge in dollars, which creates financial uncertainty for small business owners.
Even so, the adoption of the hybrid cloud model by SMEs is growing, albeit timidly. As a result, new challenges arise for the IT sector. As small entrepreneurs begin to seek more advanced cloud deployments, including CRM systems , VMs and others, changes will be required in the way they manage and maintain their infrastructure. In the survey, many respondents noted the need for more training and certifications among IT professionals.
Having a broader view of infrastructure will also be a role for IT with these changes in the scenario. Small and medium-sized companies will face new challenges when it comes to monitoring, alerting, and managing infrastructure. Tool sets will also be needed to help IT administrators manage their infrastructure. All of these changes will lead entrepreneurs to seek increasingly advanced cybersecurity and defense resources against cyberattacks.
For Dirk Paessler, founder and CEO of Paessler, the cloud will become an important part of how employees experience IT, while the system administrator will still be managing local networks, switches and data rooms. “Welcome to the hybrid future,” he said.