Pandemic accelerated the digitalization process of companies, as well as the migration and digital transformation of businesses, since where before the idea of teleworking was rejected, it effectively became a well-established reality in all companies where it was possible to implement this measure, increasing, consequently, the existing potential vulnerabilities.
2021, and similarly 2022, have proven to be difficult years in the field of digital security, as cyberattacks are increasingly frequent and sophisticated. According to ITChannel, in 2021, Portuguese organisations were attacked on average 881 times per week. This represents an 81% increase compared to 2020.
Every day, more than 10,000 files and 100,000 malicious websites were detected during 2021, according to data from Check Point Research.
With market competitiveness increasing, as well as the aforementioned lack of security, the Cloud is no longer an option and has become an imperative technology to secure companies’ data.
In light of this information, it is clear that there is an increasing investment in Cloud technology. In fact, according to IDC-the world’s leading market intelligence company – investment in Cloud infrastructure grew by 8.8% in 2021, compared to 2020.
The general director of IDC Portugal explains that “We see a brutal growth for the Cloud and that was accelerated with the pandemic“, since in 2020 the growth of investment in the Cloud was 29%, to a value of 312 million euros, while in 2021 the growth was 25%, exceeding 391 million euros.
According to the consultant, we are in a new reality dominated by the cloud, with technological solutions moving to the cloud, software moving to “as a service” models and also the growth of IaaS and PaaS, with organisations seeking access to processing capacity, storage and development of applications as a service.
For 2022, IDC forecasts that spending on Cloud infrastructure will continue to grow, increasing 21.7% compared to 2021. Consequently, non-cloud infrastructure should decrease slightly, by approximately 0.3%.
The key market leaders in this area were essentially ActiveSys partners such as Microsoft, Dell, HPE, Cisco, VMware and IBM.
John Dinsdale, Chief Analyst at Synergy Research Group, predicts that “these trends will continue over the next five years, with double-digit annual growth in sales to cloud providers offsetting a somewhat stagnant enterprise market.“
Data from Synergy Research Group indicates that worldwide spending on data center IT hardware and software will increase by 10% in 2020, this due to a 20% increase in spending on Public Cloud infrastructure.
The general director of IDC Portugal, highlights the digital acceleration that was registered with the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that 50% of GDP is already influenced by digital. Even with one of the biggest GDP drops in history, the Information Technology market continued to grow, and in Portugal, where the GDP drop was greater (reaching almost 10%), the IT market grew by almost 2%.
If the EU’s Digital Decade objectives set by the European Commission up to 2030 are to be achieved, the proportion of companies using Cloud technology must increase significantly, according to the report ‘The progress towards the EU’s Digital Decade ambition’, produced by Deloitte and supported by Vodafone.
One of the factors that does not allow this goal to be achieved is the lack of TIC (Information and Communication Technologys) specialists.
This report shows that, in Portugal, only 21% of the companies use Cloud computing services, which is 54 percentage points below the target of 75%. There are several advantages in applying these services, such as increasing data security, contributing to greater efficiency, aiding company growth, generating knowledge and reducing costs. Besides this, a study carried out by Accenture underlines the reduction of 59 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, allowing companies that adhere to the service to increase their carbon neutral targets. The study also indicates that there are other ecological possibilities, such as the reduction of solid residues and the adoption of clean energy.
There are cases in which data was compromised when stored in Cloud technology. However, it should be noted that this occurred in situations such as incorrect configurations of technologies; inadequate use of functionalities and lack of specialists in the technology which can lead to a wrong sizing of the solutions.
Note that according to IDC forecasts, by 2025, 60% of organisations will implement dedicated cloud services, and 55% of organisations will migrate their data protection systems to a cloud-centric model to be able to meet performance, security and compliance requirements.
ActiveSys is the ideal partner for implementing Cloud technology in your company, since it offers a service called Cloud Services, which aims to support companies in their transformation strategy and migration to the Cloud.
Do not hesitate to contact us for further information.