Adoption of cloud in South Africa

Adoption of cloud is on the rise with approximately 31% of businesses using cloud telecoms solutions and more than 71% of companies using cloud to back up their data, according to a recent study.

Despite this, another study has revealed that small businesses are slow to adopt cloud due to the recent bouts of loadshedding in South Africa and their concern for internet connectivity during these blackouts.

With the development of two new datacentres in South Africa, by one of the two most popular cloud platforms, Microsoft and the upcoming development of its rival datacente, Amazon Web Service, in 2020, it is surmised that cloud growth in South Africa will increase as issues of offshore cloud hosting such as connectivity, latency and also the legal risks will become less of an issue with local datacentres for these popular platforms.

According to the latest Cloud Survey, there is a significant adoption of software as a service (SAAS) with 42% of companies utilising the cloud for SAAS products. The most significant uptake of cloud services was Backup as a service with an adoption of 53%. Other cloud services with a significant adoption in the SA market included Infrastructure and Platform as a service, both at 26% and Recovery as a service at 20%.

The top three benefits of the cloud based on popular opinion were noted as Data Backup, Data Recovery and Cost savings. The year 2018 was year zero for Cloud in South Africa but we can expect to continue seeing overall growth in the adoption of cloud and cloud services in 2019 and beyond.