The Adoption of Cloud Technology by Enterprises - A Whitepaper by RapidValue Solutions

The Adoption of
Cloud Technology by Enterprises
THE ADOPTION OF
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY BY ENTERPRISES
A Whitepaper by RapidValue Solutions
1
©RapidValue Solutions

The Adoption of
Cloud Technology by EnterprisesIndex
02
05
01
Why Cloud? - Key Benefits
The Cloud Deployment Models
Introduction
07 The Growing Cloud Technology
12
13
15
16
Case Study: Enterprise Ticketing System Hosted on Cloud
The Future of Cloud
Authors
About RapidValue
2

1. Introduction
The Adoption of
Cloud computing has become a must-have technology for every enterprise. Whether you realize or not, cloud
has taken over how the world consumes technology today. And this is true for every business, big or small,
new-age or traditional. In fact, cloud computing itself, is now, a big business. According to Gartner Inc., the
worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow at 17.3 percent in 2019 to a total of $206.2 billion,
up from $175.8 billion in 2018.
Adopting the cloud has several benefits. You can improve your budget flexibility by shifting spending from
Capex to Opex. It improves business agility and flexibility. There is a considerable reduction in time to market
for new services. Enterprises have begun to rely heavily on cloud services for automation and to obtain
resources on-demand with limitless computing cycles and storage available at the touch of a button.
This paper addresses the primary reasons for the enterprises migrating to the cloud infrastructure, various
types of cloud deployment (technology & services) models IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, public cloud, private cloud and
hybrid cloud, feature comparison of two popular cloud platforms – AWS and Microsoft Azure, and some
examples of how enterprises and consumers are using the cloud technology.
As you read further, the paper presents a case study of a leading organization which is into admission,
access control and data management solutions for the entertainment and sports industry. It draws upon
RapidValue’s experience of helping enterprises succeed in the complex cloud ecosystem.
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The Adoption of
2. Why Cloud? - Key Benefits
Efficiency
The cloud ecosystem transforms enterprises large and small by offering the potential to engage with more
customerswithdifferentbusinessmodels.However,thebenefitsofcloudmayvaryfrombusinesstobusiness.
Broadly, you can categorize benefits of cloud under three buckets – efficiency, flexibility and strategic value.
The efficiency benefits of cloud are mostly derived from the savings on capital investment and a payment
structure that ensures businesses only pay for the resources they use. The ability to provision resources with
just a click of a button also enables businesses to get their products to market quickly rather than wait for
hardware to be brought in and configured.
Accessibility – The ease with which cloud-based applications can be accessed is one of its prime benefits.
Virtually, any authorized user with any internet connected device can access applications and data in the
cloud from anywhere in the world.
Speedtomarket–Developingapplicationsinclouddevelopmentplatformsprovidesdeveloperswithservices
that allow them to get their applications to market quickly.
Data security – Data security is one of the biggest concerns for organizations moving to the cloud. But, these
concerns have time and again been proved to be myths. In fact, cloud providers like AWS or Azure go that
extra mile to ensure data security that probably your organization wouldn’t have spent on. Cloud providers
have dedicated specialized staff and automated processes to ensure users are provided with all the latest
security measures.
Data backup – If your data is on the cloud, you do not have to worry about backups. Cloud providers provide
networked backups so you do not have any data loss even in cases of hardware failure.
Savings on equipment – Moving to the cloud saves organizations the cost of buying and setting up servers
and other equipment.
2

The Adoption of
Pay structure – The payment structures of most cloud providers are such that users only pay for the resources
they use.
On-demand scalability – Cloud computing provides infinite computing resources to the users. Resources
can be provisioned or released according to fluctuating workloads. Cloud services are able to handle high
traffic demand, as the resources can be expanded, elastically. When the demand tends to get subsided, the
resources, which are not needed, are, then, released, automatically.
Storage options – Cloud service providers offer various options like private, public or hybrid cloud. The user
can choose according to their data requirements, security requirements and other considerations.
Tool selection – Cloud providers provide users with pre-built tools and features to build solutions that fit the
user’s specific needs.
Resilient – Resiliency is important for any enterprise, since organizations depend on digital data to run their
day-to-day operations. Cloud technology platforms have proved to be more resilient than the traditional
storage solutions. This means, if a part(s) of the cloud platform fail(s), then the rest of the platform resources
are able to function, until the problem/issue is solved.
Flexibility
The Flexibility benefits of cloud are mostly derived from the fact that users can scale services to fit their needs
whenever required.
Superior collaboration – One of the most popular feature of cloud computing is all your data being updated
in real-time. Cloud computing allows employees to operate from any location with an internet connection.
The employees can synchronize their documents in high speed and it appears as if they are working from an
office room.
Strategic Value
Moving to the cloud gives enterprises a competitive advantage as cloud providers offer the most innovative,
latest technologies available in the market which can be leveraged by the users.
3

The Adoption of
Development and testing – During development and testing processes, cloud computing works in the most
effective manner. You can set up your environment, through physical assets, with significant manpower and
in a much shorter span of time.
Disaster recovery – Disaster recovery is yet another benefit which is derived from using cloud services. The
cost effectiveness of a disaster recovery (DR) solution, which is provided by cloud computing, gives you a
faster recovery. This is much advanced than the traditional DR site, which has rigid procedures and a much
higher cost.
Streamlined work – Cloud service providers manage all the underlying infrastructure enabling you to focus
on your priorities like application development.
Regular updates – Providers will keep updating their offerings to give users the latest technologies.
4

The Adoption of
3. The Cloud Deployment Models
Technology Models
There are several types of deployment models available to host systems and applications on the cloud.
The three most popular cloud computing models are:
Public Cloud – Computing resources, provided by cloud, have been adopted by various organizations
and enterprises, through the public Internet. Cloud providers ensure that there is a kind of separation for
the resources that are used by different enterprises and organizations. It is based on the standard cloud
computing model. The service provider builds resources – the applications and storage. These resources are
available to the public through the Internet. Public cloud services can be obtained, either, free or bought on
a ‘pay-per-usage’ model.
Private Cloud – Cloud infrastructure is, entirely, owned by the enterprise and maintained, either, by the
enterprise or a third party. It can be located either on-site or off-site. Private cloud is a cloud computing
platform, which is implemented within the corporate firewall. It is under the control of the IT department.
A private cloud is designed in such a way that it offers the same features and benefits of the public cloud
systems. But private cloud removes a number of objections to the cloud computing model. This includes
control over the enterprise and customer data, issues about security, and concerns connected to regulatory
compliance.
Hybrid Cloud – Hybrid cloud is considered to be the combination of any type of cloud model mentioned
above, connected by a standardized technology. It is a combination of, on and off premises. Hybrid cloud
offers the best of both the worlds and performs distinct functions, within the same organization.
Hybrid Cloud is the most preferred strategy.
Adopting a hybrid cloud approach is said to support the testing application workloads. This provides the
comfort of an environment, without the initial investment, that might have been rendered useless, should
5

The Adoption of
the workload testing fail. Another use of the hybrid cloud is the ability to expand during periods of limited
peak usage. Moreover, there is one more deployment model which is still gaining popularity; especially in the
healthcare industry, which is the community cloud.
Community Cloud – As for Community cloud, the cloud infrastructure is said to be owned and shared by
multiple organizations, with a shared concern.
Service Models
On the services side, there are four key service models in cloud computing:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – It is the delivery of computing infrastructure as a service. IaaS is using an
existing infrastructure which can be adopted on a pay-per-use scheme. Because of this reason, it has become
an obvious choice for the organizations. Companies find it useful as they can save on the infrastructural cost.
IaaS is the fastest growing segment of the market. Gartner forecasts cloud system infrastructure services to
grow 27.6% in 2019 to reach $39.5 billion.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) – Providers deliver not only infrastructure but also middleware (databases,
messaging engines etc.) and solution stacks for the application, build and development and deploy.
Organizations are willing to get PaaS for the same reasons. Enterprises desire for speed. Gartner forecast that
the PaaS market will reach $18.8 billion in 2019 and could reach to $27.7 billion by 2021.
Software as a Service (SaaS) – They are applications, which are hosted by a provider on a cloud infrastructure.
These applications are accessed over the network or they are accessed over a program interface, for instance,
web services. SaaS is the largest segment in the cloud market. According to Gartner, the revenue from SaaS
is expected to grow 17.8% to reach $85.1 billion in 2019.
Business process as a Service (BPaaS) – Users increasingly expect deep domain expertise, technology and
global deployment capabilities from their cloud providers. In BPaaS cloud providers provide service portfolios
that bridge legacy offerings and support new automated, digital and cloud service delivery paradigms.
Gartner forecasts a revenue growth of 7.9%, to reach $50.3 billion in 2019.
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The Adoption of
4. The Growing Cloud Technology
Mobile Backend as a service (MBaaS), Storage as a service (SaaS) and Communications as a service (CaaS) are
three variants which emanates from the above service models. For more details on MBaaS, please read the
whitepaper, ‘How MBaaS is changing Enterprise Mobility Landscape’
https://www.rapidvaluesolutions.com/whitepapers/how-mbaas-is-shaping-up-enterprise-mobility-space/
Examples - Use cases, Reasons for Migration and Popular Cloud Technology Providers
CIOs are trying to craft out well-planned strategies that include cloud technology services. Hence, more and
more companies have started to adopt cloud services. The increased competition in the cloud space will pave
the way for better products, efficient services and greater innovation. It is expected that, as cloud services gain
more popularity and continue to get adopted by the organizations, a large number of application developers
will be seen as developing for the cloud.
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The Adoption of
Service
Deployment
Model
IaaS
PaaS
SaaS
USE CASES REASONS FOR MIGRATION
POPULAR PLATFORM/
SERVICE PROVIDERS
• Enterprise Infrastructure
• Virtual Datacenters
• Data Warehousing
• Tools for Design and Development
• Scripting Environment
• Operating Systems
• Virtual Databases
• Hosting Servers
• Data Processing
• Content Management System
(CMS)
• Social Media Sites
• Enterprise Websites
• Customer Relationship
• Management (CRM) Apps
• E-commerce
• Location agnostic
• On-demand scalability
• Effective resource management
• No hardware investment
• Highly redundant – no single point
of failure
• In-built tools and frameworks for
easy application development
• Faster deployment time
• Centralized platform and app
management
• No investment in physical infra-
structure
• High security for data and backup
and recovery
• Device agnostic
• Anytime, anywhere access of
applications
• No initial setup costs
• Subscription based payment
model
• Adding new users is easily scalable
• Seamless update of new features
releases
• Amazon
• Citrix
• Microsoft
• VMware
• IBM
• Google
• Amazon
• Google
• Microsoft
• Cisco
• HP
• EMC
• Salesforce
• Google
(Gmail)
• Shopify
• Zoho
• Yahoo!
• Dropbox
• Box
This section illustrates some of the ways ‘the cloud’ is being implemented by enterprises and the global
cloud technology providers.
8

The Adoption of
Popular Technology Providers
Aswementionedbefore,thecloudservicesmarketwillbeworthabout$206.2billionin2019.Manycompanies
have spawned, big and small, offering cloud services and trying to get their share of the $206.2 billion.
However, the top cloud providers are those that have moved the business customers past the infrastructure
phase and into the high-value domain of AI and ML driven competitive advantage. Here are the top 3 the
cloud service providers in the world
1. Amazon Web services – AWS dominates the public cloud space with over 40% of the market
share. They provide a wide range of infrastructure services like database storage, computing
power, networking, serverless computing along with memory cache system and auto scaling.
2. Microsoft Azure – Azure currently holds about 30% of the market. However, Microsoft Azure
is the fastest growing cloud service provider in the market. Azure has deep involvement in all
the 3 layers of the cloud, IaaS, SaaS & PaaS. Azure has been developing and helping customers
to deploy AI, ML and blockchain in innovative production environments.
3. Google Cloud – Google only shares about 3% of the market but they provide an elastic and
inexpensive cloud computing experience for users with a slightly tight budget. The Google
Cloud Platform enables users to create business solutions using Google-provided, modular
web services. It offers a wide array of services including IaaS and PaaS solutions.
9

The Adoption of
Current and planned usage of cloud platform services running
applications worldwide in 2018
Runningapps Experimental Plan to use
AWS Amazon Web Services
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 70.0%40.0% 80.0%50.0% 90.0%60.0% 100.0%
Alibaba Cloud
VMware Cloud on AWS
IBM Cloud
Google Cloud
Azure
Oracle Cloud
64%
46%
18%
10%
8%
6%
2% 3% 4%
11%
14%
10%
9%
14%
9%
23% 15%
22% 9%
16% 8%
Share of respondents
Note: Worldwide; January 2018; 997 respondents; Technical executives, managers and practitioners of cloud technologies
Source: RightScale
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The Adoption of
DIGITAL PLATFORM
LAYER
Infrastructure-Compute
Infrastructure-Storage
Services- Data Analytics
Infrastructure-Compute
Serverless, Micro Services
Services –
Application Task
Security
Connectivity
DigitalChannel-Devices
API Gateway
Digital Channel- Mobile
AWS SERVICES
EC2, Amazon EC2 Container Registry,
Amazon EC2 Container Service
Object: Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3),
RDBMS: Amazon Aurora , Amazon RDS
DW Amazon Redshift, Amazon Athena,
Amazon EMR, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon
QuickSight
AWS Lambda
AWS Step Functions
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM),
AWS CloudHSM
Amazon VPC, Amazon Route 53
AWS IoT Platform, AWS Greengrass
Amazon API Gateway
AWS Mobile Hub
AZURE SERVICES
Azure Virtual Machine, Azure
Container Registry, Azure
Container Service (AKS)
Object : Azure Blob Storage
RDBMS: Azure SQL Database
Azure Database for MySQL Azure
Database for PostgreSQL
Azure SQL Datawarehouse, Azure
Data Lake Analytics, PowerBI
,Azure HDInsight, Azure Stream
Analytics
Azure Functions, Azure Service
Fabric
Azure Logic Apps, Azure App
Service WebJobs
Azure Active Directory, Azure
KeyVault
Azure VNet, Azure DNS
Azure IoT Platform, Azure IoT SDK
Azure API Management
Azure Mobile Apps
Feature Comparison - AWS, Microsoft Azure
The following table shows subset of services provided by AWS and Azure for each layer of digital platform.
11

The Adoption of
• The application is hosted on Amazon Web Services cloud.
• Admins can use the web application to manage customers, create ticket templates, provide
customer support, view reports and get notifications from customer registrations.
• Box office managers use the web application to manage events, manage sellers, customize ticket
designs and manage ticket sales.
• Sellers can select sales point, sell tickets, capture digital signatures, scan tickets, receive payments
and refund tickets.
• The solution is integrated with payment gateway to enable online ticket sales and can also be
integrated with 3rd party hardware devices for ticket scanning, printing and card swipe.
5. Case Study: Enterprise Ticketing System Hosted On Cloud
For the past 20 years, the client has developed and sold an easy-to-use portable box office ticket device
called KIS. They wanted a transition from the features and functions of their traditional KIS hardware to an
Enterprise Ticketing System (“ETS”) called “KIS Ticket”. Unlike other online ticket applications, KIS Ticket is
intended for use by professional box office managers and their staff. The ETS allows for the simple sale or
issuance of general admission event tickets, parking passes, wristbands, event credentials, merchandise and
access control.
RapidValue designed and developed the web application and the mobile application. The important features
of the solution are as follows:-
About the Client
Business Challenge
Delivering Multi-channel Solution
The client offers a complete array of custom tickets, parking permits, roll tickets, design, and packaging &
distribution services in the United States.
12

The Adoption of
• Reduced Event management Cost – The solution reduced total event management cost by 50%.
• Start Selling in Minutes – The solution allows users to set up event and start selling tickets in just
5minutes.
• Track Sales from Anywhere in Real-Time – Access real-time sales and check-in data, manage
event 24/7, from any device.
• High Scalability – The solution is hosted on AWS which allows on-demand provisioning of
additional servers, which helps to constantly adjust capacity and costs to actual traffic patterns.
• High Security – The solution provides host level security with Amazon EC2 and additional security
features are added through AWS WAF in-line with CloudFront to defend against attacks such as
cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and DDoS.
The client derived the following results by implementing the solution:
Results
The ticketing system solution uses the client’s core ticket engine running on the Amazon Web Services cloud
platform. Using AWS allows the client to benefit from a broad set of Amazon’s compute system tools, highly
scalable processing power, security protocols, storage capacity, database and analytics backend services.
6. The Future of Cloud
Many years from now, when we are travelling in our self-driven electric cars, going to meet our AI driven
robotic personal trainers, historians will look back at 2010s as the cloud decade. The idea of cloud computing
and cloud storage has dominated this decade. You could argue that the idea of cloud computing was
formulated in the 1960s but it really had its “renaissance” moment in 2006 when Amazon launched EC2 in
the market and 2010 when cloud had taken the stage as the transformational technology of our generation.
In 2018, we crossed a significant 50% adoption milestone and cloud applications, platforms and services will
continue to radically change the way enterprises compete for customers.
13

The Adoption of
• 100% adoption of the cloud – Cloud has been such a buzzword for so long you’d think that every
company has moved to the cloud. But it is not so. We have only reached about 50% adoption in
2018 according to Forrester. That leaves a lot of room for additional cloud adoption. But as cloud
provider go all out to strengthen cloud security and provide additional value added services,
cloud adoption will gather speed as more and more companies will flock to it.
• Edge computing will redefine the cloud – In this digital edge, more and more companies are
going to need instant access to data and compute large resources to serve customers faster. This
is one of the biggest new opportunities for the cloud with its new technology called Distributed
Cloud Infrastructure which enables Edge Computing. Edge computing pushes certain compute
processes away from centralized data centers to points in the network closer to users, devices and
sensors. Edge computing is very valuable for the Internet of Things which needs to collect and
process huge amounts of data in real-time with minimal latency.
• Containerization is just going to rise and rise – Containers enable developers to manage and easily
migratesoftwarecode. Manycompaniesareusingcontainerstoenableportabilitybetweencloud
services from AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud as they build out their DevOps strategies for
faster software production. This trend will only grow in the next decade. 451 Research forecasts
that the application containers market will grow at a rate of 40% CAGR to $2.7 billion in 2020.
• Serverlesscomputingbecomespopular–Inserverlesscomputing,acloudprovidermanagescode
execution, executes it only when needed and charges only when the code is running. Developers
do not need to buy expensive servers to develop and deploy application anymore. The world got
to know of serverless computing when AWS launched Lambda in 2014. Serverless computing has
huge potential and its usage will only increase over time. However, it will require an enormous
rethink of the traditional ways of developing/producing software.
What to Expect?
Thanks to the cloud, the development ecosystem is thriving. It has allowed developers to use DevOps
strategies to develop applications faster. It has provided tools to enable build automation and fostered
application delivery and availability. Cloud will continue to fuel digital transformation initiatives for the rest
of the decade and beyond. As cloud technology can only evolve and improve and with so many new exciting
trends coming up, you can safely predict that the best days for cloud computing are still ahead.
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The Adoption of
Authors
If you’d like to know more about Cloud
Solutions, please reach out to us at
contactus@rapidvaluesolutions.com
Shuvro S. Sarkar
Nairita Goswami
Sr. Marketing Consultant,
RapidValue
Marcom Specialist,
RapidValue
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The Adoption of
Disclaimer:
This document contains information that is confidential and proprietary to RapidValue Solutions Inc. No part of it may be used,
circulated, quoted, or reproduced for distribution outside RapidValue. If you are not the intended recipient of this report, you are
hereby notified that the use, circulation, quoting, or reproducing of this report is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful.
A global leader in digital transformation for enterprise providing end-to-end
mobility, omni-channel, IoT and cloud solutions. Armed with a large team of
experts in consulting, UX design, application development, integration and
testing, along with experience delivering projects worldwide, in mobility and
cloud, we offer a wide range of services across industry verticals. We deliver
services to the world’s top brands, fortune 1000 companies, Multinational
companies and emerging startups. We have offices in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Germany and India.
www.rapidvaluesolutions.com
+1 877.643.1850
www.rapidvaluesolutions.com/blog
contactus@rapidvaluesolutions.com
16
©RapidValue Solutions March, 2019

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