Understanding Hybrid Cloud Adoption Trends in Europe

Hybrid cloud adoption is gaining popularity in the European market as it offers a flexible and customisable IT infrastructure. Organizations can integrate private and public cloud solutions to create a secure and scalable infrastructure that meets their specific needs. This approach allows organizations to maintain control over sensitive data while leveraging the cost savings and agility of public cloud solutions.

In Europe, hybrid cloud adoption has become increasingly important due to the need to comply with data protection regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). By adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, organisations can store sensitive data on private clouds while utilising public clouds for less sensitive workloads.

The European cloud computing market was valued at 63 billion euros in 2021 and is projected to grow to 560 billion euros by 2023. Cloud offerings to customers comprise computing, storage, analytics, networking, and developer tools, enabling cost savings and faster scaling opportunities for organizations.

Hybrid cloud is popular in Europe as it combines public and private clouds to meet organizational needs. It provides scalability and flexibility in public clouds while securing sensitive data in private clouds. It’s now a mainstream trend in Europe.

Hybrid Cloud Adoption Trends

• Data Management: Hybrid cloud adoption presents a flexible and cost-effective approach to data management, utilizing a hybrid storage architecture that stores less sensitive data in a public cloud and sensitive data in a private cloud. Cloud-based solutions such as backup and disaster recovery services offer scalable and affordable options for data management.Hybrid cloud adoption can also provide organizations with more options for data analytics and processing. For instance, organizations can use public cloud data analytics services to process huge amounts of data collected from different sources and then store the results in the private cloud for further analysis and use.However, data management challenges, including data integration and security across multiple cloud environments, may arise with hybrid cloud adoption. Therefore, careful planning and execution are required.
• Scalability of IT Infrastructure: Organizations need scalable IT infrastructure to support growth and changing needs. Hybrid cloud adoption offers highly scalable solutions by leveraging both public and private clouds. This approach allows for handling spikes in demand without investing in idle infrastructure. Cloud solutions can be scaled up or reduced as needed.Hybrid cloud adoption achieves scalability through containerisation, microservices, automation, and orchestration. Containerisation enables quick deployment and scaling, while microservices allow independent scaling of smaller application components. Automation and orchestration reduce the need for manual intervention and easily manage and scale applications across multiple clouds.
• Cost Reduction and Better ROI: Organizations seek cost-effective IT infrastructure solutions. Hybrid cloud adoption can achieve this through cloud bursting, which scales up resources on a public cloud when private cloud capacity is exceeded. This elasticity avoids investing in expensive idle hardware and reduces overall infrastructure costs by paying only for used resources. Hybrid cloud adoption can also reduce costs by using public cloud storage solutions such as Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, which are often cheaper than on-premise alternatives. Additionally, leveraging multiple cloud service providers reduces reliance on one vendor and increases negotiating power for pricing and contract terms.
• Improving Enterprise-Level Security and Compliance: Security improvements provided by hybrid cloud have been a major driver for the recent increase in hybrid cloud adoption. By combining private cloud control with public cloud flexibility, hybrid cloud solutions offer better security and resilience. Sensitive data and applications can be segregated on a private cloud, allowing for complete control over critical assets while taking advantage of the cost-effectiveness and scalability of public clouds for less sensitive workloads. Hybrid cloud security solutions provide better security and disaster recovery options through advanced security measures like authentication, access control, and encryption. By replicating assets across multiple clouds, hybrid clouds prevent data loss and allow for quick disaster recovery.
• Facilitating Innovation: Hybrid cloud drives innovation by allowing organizations to quickly test and deploy new applications and services using the scalability and flexibility of public clouds. If an idea proves successful, it can be moved to a private cloud for further development and scaling.  This approach allows for rapid innovation and faster product creation. A hybrid cloud enables seamless collaboration between teams, resulting in faster decision-making and time-to-market. In addition, hybrid cloud solutions can also use the latest techs, like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to drive innovation. With the option to scale infrastructure as needed, organisations can experiment with AI and ML solutions to improve their services and products for a competitive advantage. One of the biggest success stories is of GB Bank using innovation and hybrid cloud adoption to reform their business. It helped them revolutionize property development loans with Persistent. Persistent provided a streamlined solution to this challenger bank which helped bring a digital-first approach to their systems and infrastructure.
• Edge Computing: Edge Computing improves speed and efficiency by processing data close to the source. Hybrid cloud adoption and Edge Computing enables businesses to store data on private clouds while leveraging the scalability and flexibility of public clouds, saving money and improving efficiency. Edge Computing improves response times by processing data closer to where it’s generated, making it crucial for IoT devices and autonomous vehicles that require real-time processing and decision-making capabilities.

Conclusion

Hybrid cloud adoption has rapidly increased in the past few years as organizations seek to optimize IT infrastructure for improved data management, scalability, cost reduction, security, and compliance. But data integration and security challenges require careful planning and execution.