Top 7 Factors Driving Cloud Market Growth in the Middle East

The opening of hyper-scale cloud services in the Gulf especially in the last year has made cloud uptake in the Middle East even faster. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has augmented cloud adoption even more. A recent report generated by Markets and Markets revealed that the Middle East cloud applications market size is estimated to grow from USD 2 billion in 2019 to USD 4.5 billion by 2024, at a CAGR(Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 17.5% during the forecast period. (Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/middle-east-cloud-application-market-262938413.html)

The two correlated elements that are driving this growth, however, are the multiple benefits of the cloud and enterprises consistently increasing their cloud spend. In this article, we will talk about the top 7 factors driving the cloud market growth in the Middle East. So, let's walk through them one by one.

Factor#1: Cost Reduction

Switching to the cloud eliminates the need to invest huge capital on buying and maintaining expensive hardware & equipment, which reduces the CAPEX (Capital Expenditure) drastically. Moreover, with the pay-as-you-go pricing model offered by most cloud services providers (CSPs), you don't require to drop money on the things you don't use, unlike your on-premises IT infrastructure.

While these were the direct savings you make from the cloud, there are some indirect savings as well. The cloud eases the access to the data you need saving you both time and money. Besides, it also reduces capital waste due to frequent downtimes. With rare downtimes, the cloud again helps you save time and money that you otherwise had to spend on fixing potential issues that occurred due to it.

Factor#2: The Security

People usually think data within the four walls of their premises under the camera surveillance is safest. As a rule, that should be but the fact is most data thefts take place on-premises. However, most CSPs offer data-encryption by default making it difficult for non-authorized users or hackers to access it. Moreover, with the help of various security measures taken by CSPs different security settings can be set for different users. The level of security that CSPs provide through all-inclusive policies, controls, and technologies is hard to achieve independently.

Factor#3: Scalability

Unlike your on-premises infrastructure, you can easily scale your IT infrastructure up or down as per your business needs with the cloud. This is what makes the cloud ideal for enterprises with fluctuating or growing bandwidth demands. You need not invest hugely in buying servers for increasing the capacity to accommodate the increasing demands, and that you can leverage the high-performance cloud resources that are already at your disposal.

Factor#4: Loss Prevention

While all your data may permanently get lost if your on-premises hardware goes through a problem, most CSPs offer at least 3 replicas of your data server. That means, just in case one server fails, it can failover to the other, and no one notices the transition as it all happens so quickly. In short, the cloud mitigates the risk of data loss.

Factor#5: Disaster Recovery

Even a minor downtime can impact your productivity, revenue generation, and reputation adversely. While you can't preclude a disaster, you can always try to minimize its impacts and have a faster recovery to get over the catastrophe as soon as possible. Cloud allows you quick data recovery irrespective of the emergency scenario as such.

Factor#6: Mobility

The cloud leaves no one out of the loop by allowing access to the corporate data through several devices including smartphones. So, while you are on your go, you can keep yourself updated with your co-workers and clients.

Factor#7: Insights

You can't ignore the value of data in this digital era. The integration of cloud analytics into the storage solutions provided by several CSPs gives you a general view of your data. Data could be easily analyzed organization-wide through the implementation of a tracking mechanism and the generation of tailored reports. Based on the insights that it delivers, you can create the right strategy to increase efficiencies and meet organizational goals.

Wrapping Up

As we discussed above, you can implement cloud quicker, it provides you with flexibility, scalability, agility, and much more helping you pay more attention to your core business. It also helps you cut costs involved in deploying IT infrastructure, hardware installation & maintenance, and so on. These are the top few benefits that are driving cloud adoption in the Middle East. As far as the CSPs are concerned, Azure by the tech giant Microsoft is one of the most reputed CSPs in the Middle East region.

The one thing that could be bothering is it is complex to handle the cloud and the free support provided by Azure isn't of much help to those who lack technical expertise. But then, they can rest in breathe, for there are several Managed Services providers (MSPs) that can easily and cost-effectively handle their on-premises to Azure Migration. If they want to move data, they are provided with a database migration service for many CSPs like Azure. So, if they are planning to migrate the on-premises server to Azure, they must collaborate with a reputed MSP if they are at all skeptical about their technical expertise.

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