Cloud consultants set for massive workload shift to cloud
2020 bodes well for cloud adoption, according to AllCloud. On top of moving more workloads to cloud, customers may be eying IT modernization initiatives; more news from the week.
Cloud consultants take heed: Customers are pushing the bulk of their workloads to cloud infrastructure and a significant number are adopting related technologies such as containers.
AllCloud, a cloud and managed service provider based in Tel Aviv, Israel, said 85% of the 150 respondents to its cloud infrastructure survey expect to operate the majority of their workloads in the cloud by the end of 2020. Twenty-four percent of the IT decision-makers polled said they plan to be cloud-only organizations. The respondents work for companies with at least 300 employees and represent a range of industries.
AllCloud's survey, published Jan. 15, also points to growing acceptance of containers, a trend other cloud consultants view as accelerating. More than 56% of respondents reported at least half of their cloud workloads use containers or microservices.
AllCloud CEO Eran Gil said cloud adoption, as reflected in the survey sample, is further along than he anticipated. He also said the amount of containers adoption surprised him.
"It is interesting to see how many organizations are leveraging them," he said of containers. "It's far more than I expected to see."
Eran Gil
For cloud consultants, the transition from small-scale, individual workload migrations to more decisive shifts to the cloud may open opportunities for IT modernization.
"We are talking to [customers] about modernizing their infrastructure -- not just simply taking what they have on premises and hosting it on AWS or other vendors," Gil said.
Amid broader cloud adoption, AllCloud plans to expand in North America. The company in 2018 launched operations in North America, acquiring Figur8, a Salesforce partner with offices in San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Vancouver, B.C. AllCloud is a Salesforce Platinum partner and an AWS Premier Consulting Partner.
"We are focusing on growing North America in particular," Gil said, noting the company has received a new round of funding to support its expansion. "You will hear us announce acquisitions this year in either one of our ecosystems."
The funding will also help AllCloud grow organically. Gil said the company plans to hire an AWS practice leader, who will report to Doug Shepard, AllCloud's general manager for North America. Shepard previously was president of the Google business unit at Cloud Sherpas, a cloud consultancy Gil co-founded in 2008. Accenture acquired Cloud Sherpas in 2015.
Gil said the fundamental drivers of cloud adoption have changed dramatically since the launch of Cloud Sherpas. Back then, he said, cost was the main consideration, and security and reliability concerns were obstacles to acceptance. Security, however, emerged in AllCloud's survey as the top consideration in cloud selection, followed by reliability. Cost ranked fourth in the list of adoption drivers.
"All the factors 10, 12 years ago that were the determents are now the drivers," Gil said.
New channel hires
- DevOps lifecycle tool provider GitLab has appointed Michelle Hodges as vice president of global channels. GitLab, which plans to go public this year, said Hodges' hiring is part of an initiative to ramp up the company's channel strategy. Hodges joins GitLab from Gigamon, where she served as vice president of worldwide channels.
- Avaya named William Madison as its vice president of North America cloud sales. Madison's prior roles included vice president of global channel development and channel chief at Masergy Communications.
- Managed services automation company BitTitan hired Kirk Swanson as its corporate development associate. Swanson will help BitTitan pursue acquisitions in the enterprise cloud market, targeting companies with SaaS products and relationships with IT service providers and MSPs, the company said. Prior to BitTitan, Swanson served as an associate at investment firm D.A. Davidson & Co.
- Exclusive Networks, a cloud and cybersecurity distributor, named Christine Banker as vice president of North American sales. Banker will lead vendor recruitment, inside and field sales, and Exclusive's PC and server business, among other departments and teams, the company said.
- Anexinet Corp., a digital business solutions provider based in Philadelphia, has appointed Suzanne Lentz as chief marketing officer. She was previously chief marketing officer of Capgemini Invent NA.
- Workspace-as-a-service vendor CloudJumper named Amie Ray as its enterprise channel sales manager. Ray comes to CloudJumper from PrinterLogic, where she was national channel account manager.
Other news
- WESCO International Inc. has agreed to acquire distributor Anixter International Inc. for $4.5 billion. WESCO outbid Clayton, Dubilier & Rice LLC. The deal is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2020. According to Pittsburgh-based WESCO, the combined entity would have revenue of about $17 billion. The pending deal follows Apollo Global Management's agreement to acquire Tech Data Corp., a distributor based in Tampa, Fla.
- Lemongrass Consulting, a professional services and managed service provider based in Atlanta, has completed a $10 million Series C round of financing, a move the company said will help it build out its senior leadership team, boost product development, and expands sales and marketing. Rodney Rogers, co-founder and general partner of Blue Lagoon Capital, joins Lemongrass as chairman. Blue Lagoon led the new funding round. Mike Rosenbloom is taking on the group CEO role at Lemongrass. He was formerly managing director of Accenture's Intelligent Cloud & Infrastructure business. Walter Beek, who has been group CEO at Lemongrass, will stay on with company as co-founder and chief innovation officer. Lemongrass focuses on SAP applications running on AWS infrastructure.
- Strategy and revenue are getting a heightened focus among CIOs, according to a Logicalis survey. The London-based IT solutions provider's poll of 888 global CIOs found 61% of the respondents "spent more time on strategic planning in the last 12 months, while 43% are now being measured on their contribution to revenue growth." The emphasis on strategy and revenue comes at the expense of innovation. About a third of the CIOs surveyed said the time available to spend on innovation has decreased over the last 12 months.
- IT infrastructure management vendor Kaseya said it ended 2019 with a valuation exceeding $2 billion. Kaseya added more than 5,000 new customers and had more than $300 million in annual bookings, according to the company. Kaseya noted that the company had an organic growth rate of about 30%.
- Cybersecurity vendor WatchGuard Technologies updated its FlexPay program with automated, monthly billing for its network security hardware and services. Partners can acquire subscriptions from WatchGuard's distributor partners in various purchasing models, including one- and three-year contracts and pay-as-you-go terms, WatchGuard said. In the U.S., WatchGuard Subscriptions are available exclusively through the Synnex Stellr online marketplace.
- Copper, which provides CRM for G Suite, rolled out its 2020 Partner Ambassador Program. The referral program has four partner tiers with incremental incentives, marketing resources, and training and certifications.
- GTT Communications Inc., a cloud networking provider based in McLean, Va., has added Fortinet Secure SD-WAN to its SD-WAN service offering.
- EditShare, a storage vendor that specializes in media creation and management, signed Key Code Media to its channel program. Key Code Media is an A/V, broadcast and post-production reseller and systems integrator.
- Accenture opened an intelligent operation center in St. Catharines, Ont., as a hub for its intelligent sales and customer operations business. Accenture said the location is the company's third intelligent operations center in Canada and its second in the Niagara region.
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