This is a ChannelVision Magazine Publication.

A new study from Colt Technology Services predicts the next decade will be trans- formational for cloud computing, despite short term migration delays due to COVID-19. In the February survey, which polled 255 European respondents from large enterprises with 500 or more employees, 67 percent of respondents said they expect short-term delays on active migration projects, with most projects being pushed back to later in the year. On a brighter note, 96 percent of senior IT decision makers claimed they are now confident in moving criti - cal business capabilities to the cloud, meaning chan- nel partners should be prepared for a massive uptick in cloud adoption during the next few years. “With the growing gig economy and the shift to- wards remote working, it’s more important than ever to consider flexible services,” the report stated. “Cloud- based platforms and digitalization lead to better col- laboration for everyone.” In addition to these factors, Colt continued, there may be added pressure on enterprises to set a dead- line for migration. The next five years will be key for cloud growth. “For example, SAP is advising customers who are upgrading to the new S4 HANA to take advantage of the cloud with the aim to migrate a large portion of their on- premises database customers to the cloud by 2025,” Colt executives stated. “Whatever the motivations, the indus- try is going to be largely cloud-based going forward.” As more businesses migrate to the cloud, we also will see a rise in private multi-cloud connectivity. In the study, 86 percent of respondents said they now man- age multiple cloud environments. Of course, cloud migration does not come without its share of challenges, which can become amplified when multiple cloud systems are used. Fifty-nine per- cent of respondents said that security is now their top cloud migration challenge. This was followed by reli - able connectivity (48 percent) and system downtime (43 percent). These challenges are in turn fueling de - mand for private multi-cloud connectivity, with 88 per- cent of enterprises now leveraging dedicated private connections to the cloud. By Gerald Baldino Shift’ to the Cloud Colt Predicts ‘Tectonic VIRTUAL REALITY 26 CHANNEL VISION | May - June, 2020