Nutanix today announced the UAE-specific findings of its annual Enterprise Cloud Index. The latest (2019) Index shows that the majority of enterprises in the United Arab Emirates (97%) agree that the hybrid cloud model, which will ultimately afford dynamic choice about where to run each workload, is the ideal IT environment going forward and that it is also viewed as the most secure option.
UAE, though, has one of the lowest percentages of hybrid cloud usage today, and its projections of hybrid cloud growth 24 months out lag EMEA and global expectations. UAE respondents, however, report plans to catch up with the rest of the world within three to five years, when they project hybrid cloud penetration of 51%—well in line with what companies in other countries expect to be running at that time.
UAE has one of today’s lowest penetrations of traditional data centers (40%) in the world. This may actually be a positive since companies in the region will have less far to go in decommissioning data center’s in favour of more attractive IT models such as hybrid cloud.
The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index is based on research conducted by Vanson Bourne to learn about the state of global enterprise cloud deployments and adoption plans. The research surveyed 2,650 IT decision-makers in 24 countries around the world, exploring where organizations currently run their business applications and where they plan to run them in the future. It also questioned respondents on their cloud challenges and where their cloud initiatives sit against other IT projects and priorities.
Key findings from the report include:
1. UAE companies are fully participating in the trend to repatriate public cloud workloads.
2. Many of UAE’s repatriated apps appear headed for private clouds instead of traditional data centers.
3. There’s a significant disconnect between what UAE companies deem as the ideal IT infrastructure and what they’re deploying today.
4. UAE companies plan to adopt a hybrid cloud model more slowly than other countries.
5. Lack of internal IT skills and retaining qualified IT staff are top concerns for UAE companies.
Aaron White, Regional Sales Director – Middle East at Nutanix says, “It is clear that hybrid cloud is the future. Hybrid cloud capabilities constitute a growing necessity in the dynamic, digital business climate, in which enterprises demand the freedom to dynamically provision and manage applications based on business needs. Reaching this ideal IT operating model will require more comprehensive hybrid vendor solutions, as well as greater expertise in designing, building, and operating hybrid clouds.”
