(c)iStock.com/akindo

CIOs cannot blindly trust public cloud services which appear in their organisation – at least according to one recent study – but for the majority of firms, the CIO is spearheading their transition to the cloud.

That’s the latest from a survey conducted by IT services provider Unisys, which found that for almost three quarters (72%) of firms, the CIO is the primary driver of cloud migration. In comparison, the CEO (6%), board of directors (4%) and CFO (3%) were barely recognised.

The report, which took responses from more than 200 IT and business executives earlier this year, also examined the factors which influence cloud adoption. 63% of those polled argue cost reduction is a key motivator, with 42% saying security is the biggest challenge. More than two thirds (67%) of respondents envisage that at least half of their IT resources will be in the cloud by 2018.

Aside from cost reduction, the ability to enable computing capacity on demand was also highly cited as a benefit, by 62% of those polled, while freeing IT staff to perform more high-value work (51%) and changing the perception of IT, from cost centre to competitive advantage (33%), were also key.

“This study shows that far-sighted CIOs have a clear view of the competitive, operational and economic benefits of cloud computing, and are taking energetic action to realise them for their organisations,” said Steve Nunn, vice president of cloud and infrastructure systems at Unisys. “At the same time, those decision makers are clear-eyed about the need to secure both existing IT and new cloud resources in order to protect vital business assets.”

The research gives more credence to the maturing role of cloud in enterprises, as well as the changing role of the CIO as technology matures. Fruition Partners, an IT solutions provider, found last month that for 85% of CIOs, the rise of cloud is reducing their company’s control over IT, while a benchmark study from KMPG and Harvey Nash in May found a similar percentage (84%) of CIOs complaining that they did not fully own their firm’s digital strategy.

Speaking to this publication earlier this week Paul Cash, UK managing director of Fruition Partners, noted the difficulty that CIOs face. “CIOs need to get closer to the rest of the business and build relationships with key stakeholders; ensuring they are supporting staff to use technology that lets them work productively, but safely,” he said.

The full Unisys report can be found here (registration required).

Read more: What does the role of the CIO look like in 2016?

(c)iStock.com/Catherine Lane

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, IBM and Google continue to grow more quickly than their smaller competitors and own between them more than half of the global cloud infrastructure service market.

That’s according to the latest figures put out by Synergy Research, who issued a note after Amazon and Alphabet – the parent company of Google – put out their second quarter financial results last week.

Comparing the charts for this quarter compared to Q415, Amazon’s year on year growth has slowed a little – from 63% to 53% – with a similar tale being told for Microsoft (124% to 100% yearly growth respectively). The big winner, if you could call it that, is Google, which Synergy assesses is growing at a 162% yearly clip, where it was at 108% previously. IBM’s growth (57%) is unchanged from Q4, with its strong showing mainly down to leadership in the hosted private cloud segment.

The figures reveal little in the way of surprises for those who have been following the segment.

While Synergy argues the best of the rest, including Alibaba and Oracle – which bought NetSuite for $9.3bn last month – are growing particularly strongly, their current position is miles behind Google, never mind AWS.

“Amazon/AWS remains far ahead and in a league of its own, despite some valiant efforts from the other big three cloud providers,” said John Dinsdale, Synergy chief analyst, in an email.

“Despite its huge scale Amazon is still growing faster than the market and is increasing its market share. It continues to lead in all geographic regions and most market segments.”

Dinsdale told CloudTech at the time of the Oracle/NetSuite deal going public that the move would strengthen the Redwood giant’s position in the enterprise SaaS market, and assessed Oracle as a top 10 PaaS and top 20 IaaS player. NetSuite on its own was considered by Synergy as a top 15 enterprise SaaS vendor.

The market overall grew by 51%, Synergy argues, while quarterly cloud infrastructure service revenues – including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS – have now hit the $8bn mark.

(c)iStock.com/Choreograph

This time last year, Fruition Partners, an IT solutions provider, released a report which assessed the state of cloud adoption through the eyes of the CIO. The study bemoaned the rise of shadow IT and gave three best practice tips to control cloud sprawl, by focusing on the user to provide a better service, focusing on business needs, and focusing on IT strategy and how to make better use of IT service management (ITSM).

12 months on and, to quote Led Zeppelin, the song remains the same. 62% of respondents in this year’s report said there were cloud apps being used in the business without knowledge of IT, while almost three quarters (73%) said there was ‘significant’ financial wastage associated with cloud adoption when IT are not involved.

So what needs to be done, and why have things not changed? Paul Cash, UK managing partner at Fruition Partners, which was bought by CSC late last year, argues that despite this year’s offering including insight from US CIOs, the pattern is worrying. “The landscape has changed very little in the last 12 months; we’d expected that with the continued growth in cloud, businesses would have put in place clearer parameters for control,” he tells CloudTech.

The issue with the rise in shadow IT, Cash argues, is the continued antagonism between business and IT; the ‘us and them’ mentality. “Many workers do not feel the IT department understands what digital tools they need, which is why countless employees do not go to the IT department when it comes to procuring cloud services but go it alone,” he says.

“This underlines the fact that CIOs need to get closer to the rest of the business and build relationships with key stakeholders; ensuring they are supporting staff to use technology that lets them work productively, but safely,” adds Cash.

So while the report assesses things from the employees’ perspective – more than two thirds (68%) reportedly do not feel the need to consult IT when procuring cloud services – should more of the spotlight be put closer to home?

A major report released by Harvey Nash and KPMG in May assessed the current and future role of the CIO, arguing that while in the main executives are moving away from the ‘keep the lights on’ mentality, the need for greater technical expertise and the need to work alongside other stakeholders in the C-suite was pushing the job role forward.

“There is a real need for CIOs to be strong in having a cloud strategy, and sticking to it; ultimately, it is up to the CIO to either say no, or to demonstrate how the business can procure and adopt cloud safely,” says Cash. “CIOs will need to possess the qualities that allow them to negotiate and operate at all levels – in order to form broader relationships with all of the business, as well as just the IT department.”

With regard to this year’s report, there has been at least some change. We’ve all heard stories of enterprises with incredible amounts of IT duplication when a bit of clear-headedness would have saved time and money; the 2015 report referenced one company in the construction sector with 300 copies of a cloudy project management tool for 200 employees. But are we still going around in circles?

“The three takeaways – users, business needs, strategy – are still the core areas CIOs need to focus on,” admits Cash. “It’s tough to predict, given things move so quickly in technology and business, but we’d hope next year the results show an improvement in how CIOs are managing cloud alongside their in-house services.”

Read more: Why CIOs cannot ‘blindly trust’ public cloud services in their organisation

(c)iStock.com/olddays

The government of Canada (GC) has published a document advocating the ‘right cloud’ approach as part of its adoption strategy.

The GC document, published here, discusses different approaches to managing security risks, as well as best practices for adoption and a possible future vision for a Canadian public sector community cloud. It argues the ‘right cloud’ is based around the tenet that ‘no single cloud or non-cloud deployment model can meet all of [its] requirements.”

Alongside the typical descriptions of SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, as well as private, public and the like, the section on creating a cloud workforce is of particular interest. The document argues that IT professionals will need enhanced analytical skills, as well as greater business acumen and a better ability to conduct vendor management relations “to ensure that the government receives full value for its funding and full benefits under the contracts or arrangements.”

The GC is also helping to sponsor a Canadian Public Sector Community Cloud (CPSCC), which aims to be a marketplace for public cloud services accredited by the government on a security level.

The move for ‘right cloud’ differs markedly from the UK’s ‘cloud first’ policy for public sector IT launched back in 2013.

“Canadians expect governments to make the most of available technologies to improve service delivery,” said Scott Brison, president of the treasury board in a statement. “Cloud computing will help the Government of Canada get better value for taxpayers’ dollars, become more nimble in its operations, and meet the evolving needs of Canadians.”

(c)iStock.com/JurgaR

Amazon Web Services (AWS) generated $2.89 billion (£2.19bn) over the last financial quarter, according to financial figures released by the infrastructure giant yesterday.

The figures represent an almost 58% rise from this time last year. For the past two quarters, the figure stands at almost $5.5bn – up 61% from the six months ending June 30 2015.

Considering specific AWS figures were kept out of all its financial releases until last year, instead being bumped in with ‘other business’, it does rather beg the question why it ever took them so long to disclose the figures. Among the highlights Amazon disclosed in the AWS section of its release – there were five bullet points in total – was the launch of a data centre zone in Mumbai, its sixth in the Asia Pacific region, as well as FedRAMP high compliance certification and the customer win of Salesforce.

“It’s been a busy few months for Amazon around the world, and particularly in India,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO in a statement. “The team in India is inventing at a torrid pace, and we’re very grateful to our Indian customers for their welcoming response.”

Elsewhere Alphabet, parent firm of Google, announced its second quarter financial results, hitting overall revenue of $21.5bn, up 21% year on year, with particular highlights in mobile search, desktop and tablet search, YouTube, and programmatic advertising.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, in an earnings call, discussed cloud in-depth and emphasised its importance in the context of Google’s machine learning initiatives. As reported by Seeking Alpha, Pichai told analysts: “Many tremendous digital experiences are being built in the cloud today, and businesses are working to take advantage of the cloud as part of their digital transformation.

“We have strong momentum with businesses like [workflow platform] Symphony, who recently announced that its cloud computing business is available on the Google Cloud Platform,” said Pichai, adding that ‘more and more’ Fortune 100 companies are choosing Google for its cloudy operations. “We provide the high reliability and performance needed by Symphony’s customers in the financial services industry.”

Unlike Amazon, Google does not disclose its cloud revenues specifically; however, industry analysts have long been trying to join the dots. As reported by Business Insider, a note from Goldman Sachs argues AWS quadrupled the sales of Microsoft over the past 12 months, and generated 15 times that of Google. The note also reveals that AWS sees 72% year over year growth.

Back in February, Synergy Research put Amazon’s year on year growth from Q415 at 63%, and put AWS at 31% share of the overall market, significantly ahead of Microsoft (9%), IBM (7%) and Google (4%). AWS’ yearly growth according to Synergy is behind Microsoft and Google, although the firm’s lead is such that it is merely a drop in the ocean.

(c)iStock.com/Fodor90

Two in five senior executives believe flash storage technology is too expensive to invest in, according to new research figures released by data management and cloud storage provider NetApp.

The study, which polled more than 1000 UK IT decision makers, also argued that one in four financial purse holders within enterprises do not understand Flash enough to make an investment. Yet the overwhelming majority of respondents (90%) believe there is a need for flash in their business. Respondents in HR (100%) and healthcare (95%) were the strongest supporters of investing in the technology.

The research also found that the cost barrier was an issue for businesses of all sizes. 38% of smaller and bigger businesses polled argued Flash was too pricey, compared to 40% of medium sized businesses.

Yet NetApp argues that the benefits of flash go beyond the bottom line. “Our research shows that while the business value of flash in terms of performance and responsiveness is understood by IT decision makers, education on the true value of flash needs to continue further up the chain,” said Laurence James, EMEA products, alliances and solutions manager at NetApp. “Flash is a long-term investment that can transform business performance and should not be analysed in terms of capital investment alone.”

Let’s give this study a bit of context. NetApp announced its intent to acquire SolidFire, an all-flash storage provider, late in December last year for a reported $870 million. Pure Storage, another flash storage provider which went public in October, took the opportunity to have a dig at the deal – and more specifically, NetApp’s strategy – in a blog post.

No Christmas cards exchanged between those two then, presumably. Yet seven months on, the acquisition has thrown up some interesting developments. Speaking to Tech Target earlier this week, SolidFire CTO Val Bercovici – a former NetApp veteran – argued that the purchase gave NetApp the ability to “enter completely adjacent markets that other storage vendors are just not in.”

(c)iStock.com/maybefalse

Oracle has announced the acquisition of cloud ERP software provider NetSuite for $9.3 billion (£7.07bn).

The move had been rumoured strongly for the past couple of weeks – and certainly in the back of people’s minds for a significantly longer period of time – yet the agreement was confirmed today, and is expected to close later this year subject to usual regulatory approvals.

“Oracle and NetSuite cloud applications are complementary, and will co-exist in the marketplace forever,” said Mark Hurd, Oracle CEO. “We intend to invest heavily in both products – engineering and distribution.” Evan Goldberg, founder and CTO of NetSuite, said: “NetSuite has been working for 18 years to develop a single system for running a business in the cloud. This combination is a winner for NetSuite’s customers, employees and partners.”

The deal represents the latest move by Oracle to beef up its cloud operations. “This acquisition is all about strengthening Oracle’s cloud story,” John Dinsdale, chief analyst at Synergy Research told CloudTech. “It will push Oracle a couple of places higher in the enterprise SaaS market share rankings and will strengthen its position as one of the two leading ERP SaaS vendors, alongside SAP.

“It will also help to boost Oracle’s position in the CRM segment of SaaS, though it will remain a long way behind the segment leaders, Salesforce and Microsoft,” he added.

So how far have we come? Cast your minds back to mid-2012; Larry Ellison, then CEO and now CTO, is on stage announcing the general availability of the Oracle Cloud platform as a service. At the time Ellison argued that it was not the technology he objected to, but the nomenclature.

Since then, it almost feels that the database and software giant has been racing against time to catch up. In March 2014, Madan Sheina, lead analyst for software and information management at Ovum, argued Oracle had made “significant incremental advances across both its public and private cloud portfolio offerings” as part of its “aggressive” overall cloud strategy. Later that year, Oracle hired both Peter Magnusson, former mastermind of Google App Engine, and Shawn Price, formerly of SAP.

Not everything has worked out, of course. Despite, or perhaps because of, a partnership with Salesforce in 2013 which analyst firm Ovum argued offered “less than meets the eye”, the two companies seem much more comfortable nowadays in their traditional roles of backbiting one another than cosying up. The partnership with Verizon in 2014, while still available, looks a little less glossy after the telco shut down part of its public cloud offering earlier this year.

The key now, however, is for Oracle to maintain and build upon any momentum it has in the cloud. Around the time Dell announced its intent to buy EMC for $67bn in October last year, Wired published a scathing piece on the ‘living dead’ in enterprise tech. Oracle was named alongside Dell, EMC, HP, Cisco, and IBM.

As this publication has frequently observed, moving a huge legacy software and hardware revenue base over to the cloud, whether you are SAP, Oracle, or anyone else, is not easy. According to the latest figures, cloud accounted for 8% of Oracle’s total revenues over the last quarter – although Synergy disputes those numbers and argues it is a little less.

Dinsdale added that while NetSuite won’t ‘directly’ help in the PaaS and IaaS markets, Oracle remains a top 10 player in the former and top 20 player in the latter.

Read more: Marketing cloud giants join forces as Oracle snaps up NetSuite

(c)iStock.com/Jirsak

Though cloud-based resources are becoming increasingly important to companies’ IT operations and business strategies, only a third of sensitive cloudy data is encrypted, according to the latest research from digital security provider Gemalto.

The findings, conducted in association with the Ponemon Institute, found more than nine in 10 UK firms (92%) don’t encrypt more than three quarters of their sensitive data sent via the cloud, while almost four in 10 (39%) do not encrypt confidential data at all when it rests in the cloud.

Despite this the survey, which polled almost 3,500 IT and IT security professionals across five continents, argued that for almost three quarters (73%), cloud-based services were considered ‘important’ to their organisation’s operations. That number is expected to rise to 81% over the next two years. More than half (54%) of those polled however said that their organisations did not have a ‘proactive’ approach to managing cloud privacy and security.

“Organisations have embraced the cloud with its benefits of cost and flexibility but they are still struggling with maintaining control of their data and compliance in virtual environments,” said Jason Hart, Gemalto VP and chief technology officer for data protection. “It’s quite obvious security measures are not keeping pace because the cloud challenges traditional approaches of protecting data when it was just stored on the network.”

The report offered five key findings; beware shadow IT, remember that conventional security practices do not apply in the cloud, security departments are in the dark when buying cloud services, more customer information is being stored in the cloud, and encryption is important but not yet widely deployed. These findings echo a report released earlier this week by Fruition Partners, which also warned of shadow IT fears.

“Cloud security continues to be a challenge for companies, especially in dealing with the complexity of privacy and data protection regulations,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “To ensure compliance, it is important for companies to consider deploying such technologies as encryption, tokenisation or other cryptographic solutions to secure sensitive data transferred and stored in the cloud.”

(c)iStock.com/ratch0013

Cloud maturity is on the rise, although plenty of problems remain, according to the latest survey data from service management technology provider Fruition Partners.

The study, which was undertaken by Vanson Bourne and polled 400 CIOs from the UK and US, found that for almost three quarters (73%) of respondents, “significant” financial waste is occurring with cloud adoption without IT insight. Yet 85% of CIOs polled believe cloud is reducing their organisations’ control over IT.

“The maturity of cloud services has started to improve, but it is still leagues away from where it needs to be,” said Paul Cash, Fruition Partners UK managing partner. “There has to be a recognition that the need for rigorous management is greater, not less, in the cloud.”

The numbers continue to be worryingly high. 62% of respondents say there are cloud applications being used in the business without IT’s knowledge – otherwise known as shadow IT – while CIOs say more than two thirds of their colleagues (68%) do not feel the need to consult IT when procuring cloud services.

Comparing these figures with 2015’s findings, there is certainly a change afoot. Last year’s analysis found that CIOs were not applying traditional IT service management (ITSM) processes to cloud technologies. One eye-opening example was of a construction firm which had 300 copies of a cloud-based project management tool for only 200 project managers. This time around, in-house IT is on average managed by a combination of six processes; cloud, in contrast, has on average four.

Yet the knock-on effect of the infiltration of cloud applications is that while employees move cloud services into the business, the CIO will end up getting the flak. “CIOs cannot blindly trust that public cloud services will work flawlessly and be delivered perfectly at all times,” said Cash. “The more responsibility CIOs hand over to providers, without ensuring that established ITSM principles are applied, the more they open themselves up to blame if one of those services fails.

“CIOs should still be managing cloud services internally, rather than abdicating responsibility to the provider,” he added. “Otherwise they risk losing control, and increasing both cost and risk to themselves and the business.”

Fruition, which was bought was CSC in 2015, put together three steps for CIOs to, as they put it, ‘bring the cloud under control’ for last year’s report. Focus on the user to provide a better service, focus on business needs and collaborate across functions, and focus on IT strategy and how to make better use of ITSM. Perhaps worryingly, the company feels that not enough has changed for it to alter its message this year.

(c)iStock.com/wundervisuals

IT management software provider Autotask has announced a partnership with Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme and MessageOps to launch CSP Boss.

The product is aimed at Autotask customers looking to “maximise the cloud services opportunity”. Service providers can automate management, billing and support of Microsoft’s cloud portfolio, including Office 365, Azure, and SharePoint, while value added services can also be provided in the form of an integrated help desk and knowledge base. According to the dedicated page for CSP Boss, 20% gross profit margins are promised for resellers.

“Microsoft is excited to see the strategic partnership between Autotask and MessageOps,” said Brent Combest, Microsoft director of partner profitability and compete in a statement. “This combined offering furthers our vision to provide a platform through CSP from which members of the Microsoft channel can create operational efficiencies and ultimately increase profitability via the sale of our online services.”

Elsewhere, Microsoft announced a series of new cloudy and machine learning features to its Office 365 apps. Outlook will be offering @mentions, while Word will incorporate new editing and researching features. “As a cloud-based service, Editor will get better with time,” wrote Kirk Koenigsbauer, Office corporate vice president. “It will expand upon Word’s current spelling and grammar tools to inform you why words or phrases may not be accurate – teaching at the same time it is correcting.”

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced its latest financial results, with Azure revenue growing 102%, and compute usage more than doubling year on year.

You can find out more about CSP Boss here.