– By Swastik Chakraborty
The nature of customer behaviour has forced enterprises to rethink their strategy about how they design and run modern workloads. That is why businesses must continually adapt to meet changing customer demands in today’s rapidly evolving digital transformation landscape. The cloud has become a force multiplier for driving cost efficiency, operational flexibility, and increasing customer engagement in the digital economy. It is now the go-to platform for many businesses and technology innovations – enabling a new range of workloads from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to HPC, IoT, and Edge Computing.
The popularity of cloud technology can be gauged from the fact that its market is proliferating. The market is projected to grow from USD 676.29 billion in 2024 to USD 2,291.59 billion by 2032, exhibiting a CAGR of 16.5% during the forecast period. In this article, we will discuss the impact of cloud computing and how businesses are embracing cloud technology to upend their existing IT infrastructure and stay relevant in a hyper-competitive market witnessing the impact of disruptive technologies, including the latest buzzword, Generative AI.
Cloud Adoption Models
The cloud models that enterprises adopt are entirely dependent on the workload. Businesses consider moving various workloads to the cloud based on their strategic goals, operational needs, and the advantages the cloud platform offers. The critical workloads enterprises often migrate are application hosting, including web and enterprise applications, Data Storage and Backup, DevOps and Development Environments, Big Data Analytics, AI & ML, Collaboration and Productivity Tools, HPC, Gaming and Virtual Reality, etc. The common types of cloud models that enterprises look to leverage are:
1. Public Cloud: In this model, companies use infrastructure and services provided by third-party cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, Oracle, Salesforce, IBM Cloud, and Tencent Cloud. Enterprises move their workloads to public cloud for resource sharing, scalability, and investment opportunity in Opex (Operational Expenditure) model instead of the traditional Capex (Capital Expenditure) model. Some prominent use cases are web applications, collaborative platforms, non-sensitive data storage, and test/dev environments. A 2024 survey highlighted that 97% of businesses worldwide prefer using public cloud services, reflecting the pervasive penetration of this model.
2. Private Cloud: Enterprises move to private cloud – hosted on-premises to exercise control over data, infrastructure, and security. They enjoy the privilege of customizing the private cloud to specific business needs. This is especially pertinent in the modern context where the volume, velocity, and variety of data have forced decision-makers to shun traditional thoughts about their IT infrastructure. It is also cost-effective in the context of workloads that enterprises are looking to move. More typical use cases include workloads related to healthcare, BFSI or other industries that have stringent data privacy requirements. A 2024 survey revealed that 76% of businesses globally prefer using private cloud services, underscoring the popularity of these services among enterprise users. Some examples of private cloud platforms and technologies are VMware vSphere, OpenStack, Nutanix Enterprise Cloud, Dell EMC VxRail, Red Hat OpenShift Tyrone Skylus, etc.
3. Industry & Use-Case Specific Cloud Adoption: Enterprises resort to this model for customized solutions for specific industries or use cases. Adopting this model has helped organizations work with pre-configured environments that include the entire hardware and software stack for faster deployments. The use cases for this model are evident in retail environments (e-commerce platforms), manufacturing (IoT solutions), and financial services (fraud detection systems).
Apart from the wide adoption of these models to gain business efficiency and accelerate business competitiveness, new technologies and concepts are accelerating the migration to the cloud. In the subsequent discussions, we will focus our attention on these practices.
Where India Stands in Cloud Adoption
In India, private cloud adoption is prevalent among industries such as banking, healthcare, and government, which prioritize data sovereignty. Its market is also expected to rise, with a projected revenue of USD 35,235.5 million by 2030. India’s private cloud server market expects a compound annual growth rate of 16.2% from 2024 to 2030. High-Performance Computing (HPC) Cloud is gaining traction in the pharmaceuticals, automotive, and academia sectors, where complex simulations and large-scale data processing are critical. With abundant raw data, Indian enterprises are looking to harness the data to deliver meaningful solutions for end customers. With a strong demand for HPC cloud, its market is expected to soar in the coming years, with an expected size of USD 17.09 billion by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 10.29% during the forecast period (2024-2029).
Conclusion
The cloud is more than an infrastructure upgrade; it’s a strategic imperative for businesses aiming to thrive in a digital-first world. Companies that embrace cloud technology benefit from enhanced agility, lower costs, and the ability to deliver superior customer experiences. As digital transformation continues to reshape the business landscape, the companies that invest in cloud-based innovations will be better equipped to adapt to changing market demands and lead in the digital age.
By prioritizing cloud adoption, aligning it with organizational goals, and addressing potential challenges with proactive solutions, businesses can fully realize the benefits of cloud technology and secure a competitive advantage for the future.
(Swastik Chakraborty is VP – Technology at Netweb Technologies.)
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