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Organizations are moving at a very fast pace from on premises setup to cloud ecosystems. Cloud computing revolutionized digital IT and the way enterprises operated a couple of years back. As per Gartner prediction there is a double-digit growth worldwide in cloud which is fueled by artificial intelligence and hybrid cloud computing by year 2027.
By year 2027 most of the enterprises nearly 70% will be using industry cloud platforms to support their business initiatives to achieve speed to market and gain competitive edge.
Worldwide, the IT industry is dominated by ‘Big Three’ for enterprise cloud solutions. Google cloud platform (GCP), Microsoft (Azure) and Amazon web servers (AWS) followed by some other cloud solution providers such as Alibaba, Oracle , IBM. They offer private, public and hybrid cloud services. They are followed by some other popular cloud providers in this space – Alibaba cloud, Oracle cloud and IBM cloud which provide specific services and have stronger controls around data access, legacy integrations etc.
In this article we will learn more in detail about top enterprise cloud solutions, their key strengths, and strategies for choosing the right enterprise cloud solution for your business.
Why are Enterprise Cloud Solutions Important?
The enterprise cloud solutions market is primarily dominated by ‘Big Three’: Microsoft Azure, Amazon web servers (AWS) and Google cloud platform (GCP). They control 63% of the cloud market. The cloud space is older somewhat near 60 years and enterprises moving rapidly from on premises data centers to cloud hosting providers due to variety of reasons as under:
- Low capital outlay – enterprises prefer not to own their own data centres and add to CAPEX
- Faster time to market – time to market for a product and service is crucial with rapid pace and on prem setup means install, invest, manage and test every time need to bring something new to market
- Agility – upgrades or purchases required in setting up required infrastructure acts as hindrance to achieve agility
The answer to all above is moving to enterprise cloud solutions and bringing in agility to business, deploying applications and services faster without worrying about underlying infrastructure requirements, reduction in technical debt and reducing CAPEX.
Amazon web services dominate 29% of the cloud market followed by 22% owned by Microsoft Azure and 12% by Google cloud platform (GCP). So overall 63% of the market has dominance of these three big players.
Comparing Top Enterprise Cloud Solutions
Let’s look at some key characteristics of ‘Big Three’ enterprise cloud solutions.
| Key Features | Amazon AWS | Microsoft Azure | Google Cloud Platform (GCP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global regions | 36 | 60 | 42 |
| Availability zones | 114 | 126 | 127 |
| Services | 200+ | 200+ | 100+ |
| Strengths | Global reach and broad range of services Scalable On premises, public, private and multi-cloud deployments supported | Hybrid clouds and enterprise integrations | AL/ML capabilities and data analytics |
| Meant for | Small to large enterprises | Ideal for organizations using Microsoft services | Meant of organizations focused on AI/ML capabilities |
For businesses operating in South-East-Asia Alibaba is top choice having 5% of global market share.
IBM cloud has 170 products across public, private and multi-cloud deployments with market share of 4% worldwide.
Choosing Right Enterprise Cloud Solutions
All cloud providers look the same but still there are key things to look at before making the choice about right fit to business.
- Cost – pay attention to factors such as billing transparency, discount programs and predictability of costs
- Scalability and performance – can it handle the workloads of your business solution as you grow? Global infrastructure, speed, uptime are some key metrics to be looked into
- Security and compliance – certified cloud on industry or worldwide regulations such as GDPR, HIPPA etc
- Support – various support tiers available
- Integrations – does the cloud solution fit into your existing applications, tools and services
- Deployment flexibility – support for various cloud setups such as public, private, hybrid.
- Location – data centres locations determine latency
- Ease of use – how friendly is user interface as simple tools help in saving time