IaaS cloud model gets momentum

BOSTON, USA: As the move towards Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) builds up steam, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and traditional carriers are accelerating their move towards becoming public IaaS cloud providers.

Through a worldwide survey of 189 MSPs and carriers conducted by Nixu Software during November 2013, an increasing number of service providers are gearing up to introduce their own IaaS cloud offering. Compared to a similar survey carried out by Nixu in March 2013, the market is growing rapidly with the early majority showing signs of starting to initiate IaaS cloud projects.

"Throughout 2013, we have seen an increasing number of MSPs and carriers initiating their move to augment their service portfolios with IaaS cloud," said Juha Holkkola, MD of Nixu Software.

"Several of the large service providers have been a little slow to get on board, but after the National Security Administration's cyber-spying scandal, service providers from around the world are seeing how they can successfully compete against the U.S.-based players. As we see the momentum starting to build up in a serious way, Gartner's 41.3 percent projection of compounded annual growth rate for the IaaS cloud through 2016 seems entirely plausible," he added.

Key Findings:

• Transformation to IaaS cloud computing model is starting to show significant momentum as MSPs and carriers are including IaaS cloud in their service portfolio

• The perceived information security risks associated with incumbent U.S.-based IaaS cloud providers is helping challengers based outside the U.S. to differentiate their cloud offerings

• Due to intensifying competition in the IaaS cloud space, SMBs and enterprises are showing increasing interest in reducing their data center footprint by buying CPU, memory, storage and networking from IaaS clouds