Public Cloud as key enabler for innovation

• Already today, 19 percent of German companies are in active public cloud operation, 55 percent are preparing their deployment at full speed
• Over two-thirds of companies plan to spend at least 10 to 20 percent of their annual infrastructure budget on public cloud issues by 2020
• The public cloud market leaders AWS and Microsoft Azure share the majority of the current public cloud budget in German companies with 60 percent
• 79 percent of companies make use of the services and know-how of external partners both in consulting and in operations

Nordcloud and the external IT research company Crisp Research have conducted a recent study to examine the strategies and mindset for public clouds in the German midmarket and to analyze the demands on managed public cloud providers. German companies are increasingly focusing on the public cloud and are dependent on the external expertise of IT service and consulting providers. The study, which surveyed a total of 160 IT, digitization and business decision-makers, shows that the majority of German companies are already involved with the public cloud today. 19 percent are already actively using the public cloud in the form of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), while a full 55 percent are in the implementation or active preparation phase. Half of the companies prefer a phased relocation of their application and infrastructure portfolios, 33 percent design the cloud migration "all in", i.e. the entire application portfolio is planned as a large-scale transformation project.

Trend towards dual and multi vendor strategy

Since the functional scope, complexity and speed of innovation of public cloud platforms are now very high, more than half (53 percent) of the companies surveyed specifically rely on two strategic cloud providers. In addition, a total of 18 percent stated that they used more than two providers. As reasons for a dual or multi vendor strategy, 34 percent cited the minimization of the risk of a vendor lock-in as the reason, 41 percent also estimated the possibility of global coverage of the data center locations as enablers for international rollouts of their new digital services.

Investment in the public cloud on the rise

In addition, more than two-thirds (72 percent) of respondents said they would invest at least 10 to 20 percent of their infrastructure budget for IaaS and PaaS in the public cloud by 2020. Around a quarter (26 percent) even plan to shift between 20 and 50 percent of their infrastructure budget to public clouds. On average, 27 percent of the cloud budget is allocated to pure cloud operation. At 60 percent, the public cloud majors AWS and Microsoft Azure share the majority of the current public cloud budget for IaaS and PaaS in companies, although providers such as Google Cloud Platform, IBM and Alibaba also play an important role in German-speaking countries.

Managed Public Cloud Providers in Demand as Experts

Since both the transformation into the public cloud and the operation of these systems are in part highly complex, the vast majority of the companies surveyed (79 percent) rely on the support of external service providers. 52 percent said they worked with one, 19 percent with two managed public cloud providers. The external expertise is used in almost all areas, from the cloud strategy (64 percent), monitoring and management (54 percent) and the development of the API strategy (51 percent) to the development of DevOps operating concepts (51 percent). Managed Public Cloud Providers thus have a high strategic relevance. "In order to remain competitive in times of digital transformation, companies should increasingly rely on cloud computing technologies," comments Uli Baur, Country Manager Nordcloud DACH. "Our study results make it clear that more and more German companies are aware of this necessary step and are therefore already preparing the implementation and planning to use more resources for cloud operation and all associated processes in the future. Through partners like Nordcloud, the numerous changes can also be mastered by companies that themselves lack the necessary specialist staff and know-how."