Solution guide: Cloud services data center infrastructure

The cloud comes of age

This has been the decade of the cloud, as a tectonic shift drives data from PCs and proprietary racks to mobile endpoints and virtualized public infrastructure. Cloud services convert capex to opex, eliminate unused capacity, save on staff, accelerate agility and innovation and enable instant up and down scaling.

Whether they offer end-to-end solutions based on third party clouds or whether they build their own, Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) of all sizes are on the march, deploying new infrastructure, offering new services, and growing world-beating businesses based on the cloud’s massive economies of scale and compelling business case.

While there is considerable debate over market size and breakdown, Gartner estimates that public cloud services now account for approximately $500 billion, or 10% of global corporate IT spend (up from 4% in 2017). Depending on which research house you follow, private cloud spend is about a quarter to a third of this. Public cloud apps (SaaS) generate almost $200 billion per annum. The IaaS and PaaS markets are both worth over $100 billion with the highest forecast CAGR. And business processes, security and management services are approaching $100 billion and growing fast.

Over half of the IaaS market is held by just 9 companies – including three well-known leaders - but there is plenty of competition. Wisely, cloud providers continue to re-invest in innovation, cost reduction and efficiency, putting profits back into the business and developing new cutting-edge services and the enhanced compute capability and interconnection required to run them. But the laws of physics apply. As a key differentiator and market opener, innovation is central to the cloud business, and deployment of AI helps this process for existing users. But as cloud providers know all too well, the cloud lives and grows in physical premises on the ground, and these decisions need to be taken in a more traditional way.