03 November 2020
IDC Cloud Survey 2020 reveals the direction for Nordic cloud transformation: Even though one-third of Nordic organizations are still using only one private or public cloud platform most organizations are using two or more. According to the study, multi-cloud is becoming the norm in the Nordics. The study was carried out by analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC), in collaboration with TietoEVRY, and included the opinions of 200 IT decision-makers from across the Nordics.
“This survey shows that one of the biggest challenges for CIO’s is to deliver a real multi-cloud environment that allows seamless compute and data traffic, as well as the opportunity to move workloads and data from one cloud platform to another. And when creating seamlessness is an obstacle, the risk of building silos of unconnected data instead of multi-cloud environments grows”, says Johan Torstensson, Head of Cloud & Infra at TietoEVRY.
The pandemic has not affected the cloud ambitions of the organizations. On the contrary, cloud has stayed high on their agenda: 50% of the Nordic organizations indicated that cloud projects are re-evaluated and reshaped but not halted in general due to the Covid-19 situation.
Furthermore, a growing interest in private cloud solutions points specifically towards edge computing and innovation readiness with more than 60% of organizations having more than 25% of workloads in private cloud. The trend becomes more evident if we look at enterprise application development.
According to IDC Research, custom-built applications and industry specific applications are expected to be the bulk part of the more than 520 million applications developed and deployed globally between 2019 and 2025 (compared to about 100 million applications in the 40 years before 2019). This will be the gem of the next steps in the digital transformation, as business and technology merge into digital.
”Application modernization is boosting the development of multi-cloud, as different enterprise applications have different needs and requirements, like security and performance, resulting into multiple differentiated clouds. The multi-cloud environment is enabling organizations to manage data on their own and treat digital services and compute power as the infrastructure that is needed to release the value from any organization’s data. This is natural evolution in cloud maturity”, Torstensson continues.
The IDC cloud survey forecasts significant automation development in the next 24 months. Almost one in four (23%) organizations will have automated the orchestration of cloud solutions. This number is likely to be even higher, as nearly one-third (29%) of organizations will leave the orchestration to third-party vendors. There is no doubt that these vendors will use automation to manage their customers’ multi-cloud environments.
It is important to recognize that internal orchestration in IT organizations is growing. IDC believes this shows a strengthening of the IT-organizations role as trusted enablers when it comes to handling the digital infrastructure by taking care of cloud orchestration.
41% of Nordic organizations consider security issues to be the biggest challenge when executing cloud transformation. A slightly higher number of respondents - 42% - consider compliance risk to be the biggest challenge.
“There is an ongoing discussion on data residency in all four Nordic countries, although it is most visible in Sweden and Norway. Recent high-profile data breaches have hit the news in Finland, causing a heightened concern about cybersecurity and data protection also among Finnish citizens. Managing data and digital risk is an essential part of the trust needed for multi-cloud", Johan Torstensson says.
Another element in the trust discussion is sustainability. Among the Finnish and Swedish respondents 42 % were taking the environmental impact such as energy consumption or CO2 emission into account when implementing their cloud strategy. However, only 36 % of Norwegian respondents answered yes to the same question.
“The request from customers in cloud is about energy consumption, as well as the lifecycle management of hardware etc. If you do not take that seriously, you will not be invited to take part to the conversation – at all. Sustainability has become a given – like security,” he concludes.
IDC also predicts that the changes created by the Covid-19 crisis will help to pave the way for more sustainable and climate-friendly development.
The IDC Nordic Cloud Survey was conducted in August and September 2020 and published with survey partners in Q4 2020. Decision makers in 200 Nordic organizations with more than 100 employees participated. TietoEVRY has collaborated with IDC in the making of the study. Download the full report at https://www.tietoevry.com/idccloudsurvey2020
TietoEVRY Newsdesk, tel. +358 40 5704072, email news@tietoevry.com
TietoEVRY creates digital advantage for businesses and society. We are a leading digital services and software company with local presence and global capabilities. Our Nordic values and heritage steer our success.
Headquartered in Finland, TietoEVRY employs around 24 000 experts globally. The company serves thousands of enterprise and public sector customers in more than 90 countries. TietoEVRY’s annual turnover is approximately EUR 3 billion and its shares are listed on the NASDAQ in Helsinki and Stockholm as well as on the Oslo Børs. www.tietoevry.com
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.
With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives.
Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data and marketing services company. www.idc.com