Verizon: Enterprise cloud use reaches tipping point

New York - The use of cloud-based enterprise storage and production applications, as well as enterprise spending on cloud technology, has increased in the past year to a tipping point. According to the Verizon 2013 State of the Enterprise Cloud Report, between January 2012 and June 2013 the use of cloud-based storage grew 90% and use of cloud-based memory increased 100%, mostly due to the shift of business-critical applications to the cloud.



Other findings of the report include:

• Increased cloud capacity led to a slower growth rate of virtual machines (35%) during the report period.

• Enterprises increased their average cloud spend by 45%.

• Rated in order of importance, the four most critical cloud components are uptime, performance, user interface, and API.

• Sixty percent of cloud applications are web-based and Internet-facing. Another 23% are internal-facing production applications.

Of particular interest to retailers, the report predicts that enabling retail services will be one of three key factors driving future enterprise cloud growth. Verizon research indicates that online retailers are spending more on cloud services to implement Internet-facing, POS, and online purchasing applications. The other two key enterprise cloud growth drivers are increasing worker productivity and leveraging Big Data. Verizon cautions that cloud technology must deliver enterprise-grade security and consistent performance to reach its full potential as a business IT platform.