Insights: The age of cloud deployment choice is here

In recent years, a series of compounding global issues – such as the global inflation surge and the pandemic outbreak drove business leaders worldwide to re-think their priorities and take a more thoughtful business approach. Digital transformation, and the implementation of cloud computing, has taken a front seat in their decision-making. Today, well into its second decade, cloud computing is continuing its fast rise, although growth rates vary by region.

When it comes to the Middle East, IDC estimates that public cloud spending in Saudi Arabia will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.7% over the coming years to reach $3.26bn in 2026, as organisations look to leverage the power of the cloud to modernise critical business applications and become cloud native.

Similarly in the UAE, analysts estimate that total spending on public cloud will show a CAGR of 23.4 per cent hitting $3.30bn in 2026.

These statistics clearly show rapid uptake of public cloud across the region. However, with rapid automation powered by cloud, organisations now also want cloud services delivered faster and from shorter distances. Some, in fact, want to run these cloud services on their own premises.

The further the cloud region is from the user, the more latency (or delay) in operations. Putting computing power closer to the cloud consumer is critical to eliminating such lags. And that means making cloud computing available in more—and more manageable—form factors than in the past.

Demand for data sovereignty

Many corporations, as well as government entities, want the benefits of the cloud model yet need assurances that their confidential information remains within their borders.

The demand for data sovereignty boils down to the need for security, privacy, compliance, and control. Governments are especially concerned with protecting sensitive data and fostering trust with citizens. By exercising control over data residency, governments can mitigate cybersecurity attacks and act in accordance with the law.

Bringing flexibility to the fore

Putting the power of cloud computing closer to the user is key for speeding operations but truly distributed cloud services address more than that critical need for speed.

Companies in regulated industries—such as healthcare, financial services, and transportation—are required to retain control over some critical operations for compliance reasons. That means those companies either must keep running workloads “as is” on old technology or bring elastic cloud services into their facilities. Putting them “out there” in someone else’s distant infrastructure is not going to cut it.

The importance of parity

Organisations wanting to run some workloads in their own facilities and some in a third-party public cloud region must ensure that the same services are available in both instances. This symmetry enables workloads to “burst” out to public cloud when demands require. If there is no parity between public cloud and private implementations, the mismatch will make such workload balancing impossible.

This is why using a public cloud that makes just a subset of its services available to run on-premises is not ideal and will cause challenges down the road.

A decade ago, Gartner’s distinguished analyst Lydia Leong predicted that public cloud infrastructure would be much more distributed over time to meet these demands.

The ideal scenario for many customers is full public cloud functionality available from their choice of sites, whether a hyperscale public cloud region, in their own data center and/or in a server room on premises.

And sure enough, that is what is happening now in the second decade of cloud computing.

Nick Redshaw is the senior vice president – Tech Cloud – Middle East and Africa and UAE Country Leader at Oracle

Read: Middle Eastern governments have prioritised and fast-tracked the innovation agenda: Oracle

Also read: Public cloud’s contribution to UAE economy could reach $181bn by 2033 – report