Equinix, a leading global interconnection and data centre company, has announced the findings of an independent survey of more than 1,200 senior IT professionals from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Results show that more than seven in 10 (71%) organisations are likely to move more of their business functions to the cloud in the coming years. A total of 60% of EMEA IT leaders cite proximity to cloud service providers (CSPs) as an integral factor when choosing a data centre in their local market.
Despite more business moving to the cloud, 70% of these same respondents still perceive there to be cybersecurity risks around cloud adoption. Large public data breaches have caused uncertainty among companies, leading to 45% of respondents focusing on improving their organisation’s cybersecurity as their biggest IT priority.
Cloud and cybersecurity considerations together are top of mind for IT executives across the region. For nearly half (48%) of the those surveyed, the adoption of cloud-based services represented one of the top two factors that will impact their business in the future – second only to cybersecurity risks and breaches (53%). The results also showed that companies across EMEA are twice as likely to connect with CSPs than any other product or service provider.
Comparatively, in the UAE, 59% of respondents believe their organisation will move more to the cloud, a lower rate than for organisations across EMEA (71%). A total of 76% also believe that cloud service providers are an important factor when choosing a data centre in the UAE. And 26.2% of IT professionals surveyed think that cloud service providers are the business that their organisation is most likely to connect with in the future.
The study also finds that only 17% of organisations across EMEA are currently using multi-cloud architecture. This compares to 56% who currently use private cloud and 42% who use public cloud. Organisations should be looking to multiple cloud service providers when building out their digital infrastructure strategy to remain competitive and secure.
Equinix launched Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric (ECX Fabric) in 2017 to support businesses that need access to multiple CSPs. The service offers customers private connections to global cloud service providers no matter their location. Last year the company also launched the Equinix SmartKey service, a global key management and encryption Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that simplifies data protection across any cloud or destination.
Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director, Equinix MENA said: “The trend of Digital Transformation is revolutionising the MENA market, urging businesses to take innovative approaches such as cloud adoption. One of the ways businesses can use the cloud more securely is through direct, dedicated interconnections between network and cloud service providers and users and data, bypassing the hacking and performance risks of the public Internet. At Equinix, we see multi-cloud convergence hitting a tipping point and the cloud as a major catalyst for changing how enterprises will do business in the emerging global digital economy.”
The independent survey of 1,206 senior IT decision-makers across EMEA was commissioned by Equinix and conducted online between August 20 and September 13 2018. The survey was conducted to further explore areas highlighted in the second volume of Equinix’s annual market study, the Global Interconnection Index (GXI), which analyses traffic exchange globally, Interconnection, or direct and private traffic exchange between key business partners, is becoming the de facto method for companies to operate in today’s digital world.
