Outsourcing cloud management driven by increasingly complex IT environments
Enterprises across the globe are turning to cloud outsourcing providers to manage their private and hybrid cloud infrastructure because of increasingly complex IT environments, according to a report published by ISG.
The report finds many enterprises focused on leveraging provider capabilities to control the cost of managing their private and hybrid clouds.
“Enterprises worldwide have realized that outsourcing their cloud infrastructure management is a great way to realign their IT systems with business objectives in the most cost-effective manner,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research.
The benefits of outsourcing cloud management
Outsourcing cloud management offers several other benefits beyond cost containment, the report says. It gives companies access to specific IT skills they may not have, and it allows them to share resources such as engineers and security services at cloud facilities.
Global interest in outsourcing has been growing amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Spending on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) climbed to a record $8.2 billion in the second quarter of 2021, up 41 percent year-over-year and 15 percent quarter-over quarter.
Overall, global demand for IT and business services, at $19.1 billion in Q2, reached a new record for the third straight quarter, as enterprises accelerate their digital transformations and move to the cloud.
The report notes that while many companies froze their outsourcing efforts at the start of the pandemic, others are planning to use outsourcing services for the first time in 2021.
A steady growth in the HCI market
The report sees steady global growth in the hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) market. The digitization of enterprises is driving the convergence of physical and digital worlds and eliminating the large abstraction layer between hardware and software.
Enterprises are using HCI for its high reliability, capacity and scalability and for its simplified monitoring and management capabilities. HCI also allows for better disaster recovery and offers independent compute capabilities.
In addition, the cloud management platform (CMP) market has changed significantly in recent years, the report says. Many of the management tasks that were formerly performed through the CMP can now be done easily with an individual cloud provider’s console.
CMP, which was an essential feature previously, has now become a commodity, and hybrid cloud management vendors are expanding their features to offer the broadest range of tools to users.