
Cloud IaaS providers are seeing no shortage of customers as startups, SMBs and enterprises continue to discover the benefits of adopting Infrastructure as a Service. Industry analysts at Gartner have recently released a report detailing the rapid adoption of IaaS. Here’s a few highlights from the report:
- Between 2014 and 2015, the IaaS market grew 32.8%
- The compound adjusted growth rate of IaaS from 2014 to 2019 will be 29.1%
- In 2015, the IaaS market is estimated to be worth $16.5B
- 83% of CIOs surveyed mentioned that they would consider IaaS for their workloads
These figures show that cloud IaaS providers are seeing an influx of customers, although the data shows that IaaS is just a sliver of the overall IT spending pie. Gartner says that overall IT spending globally is $3.5T.
Gartner’s latest report says that 2014 was a “Make or break” year for cloud IaaS providers. With companies such as HP turning their focus from public cloud IaaS to enterprise clients, 2014 proved to thin the heard from those looking to break into the IaaS game versus those who have simply faded away.
Lydia Leong, analyst at Gartner, is quoted in a Gartner blog article saying, “The sky is not falling — customers are getting great value out of cloud IaaS — but the competitive landscape is shifting; few providers have the financial resources to invest in being broadly competitive in the cloud IaaS market.”
Ms. Leong adds, “Cloud IaaS is not a commodity. Providers vary significantly in their features, performance, cost and business terms. Although in theory, cloud IaaS has very little lock-in, in truth, cloud IaaS is not merely a matter of hardware rental, but an entire data center ecosystem as a service. The more you use its management capabilities, the more value you will receive from the offering, but the more you will be tied to that particular service offering.”