Cloud hardware spend exceeds $4bn in EMEA

Annual spend in user value terms up 19 per cent year on year, forecast says

The EMEA region's spend on cloud computing-related hardware is continuing to grow, according to market analyst IDC; in fact it is now expected to exceed $4bn (£2.4bn) this year.

Giorgio Nebuloni, research manager of the EMEA enterprise server group at IDC, said: "The rise of cloud has triggered a revolution in the hardware market.

"While white-box and a few large OEMs fight to absorb the surge in demand for public cloud, most incumbent hardware players invest heavily in offerings enabling on-premises and hosted private cloud environments, such as integrated systems, high-end networks, and high-performance storage."

According to Nebuloni's numbers, by the end of the year cloud hardware sales will have risen 19 per cent in value terms year on year to $4bn, with 15 per cent of total infrastructure spend in the region related to cloud environments, up from eight per cent in 2011.

Cloud hardware will comprise almost a quarter of EMEA infrastructure spend by 2018.

Unsurprisingly, this growth exerts influence not only on hardware architecture but on manufacturer strategy, with hybrid set-ups proving especially popular for their security advantages.

"Along with big data, social, and mobility, cloud is one of the four pillars of our 'Third Platform' vision – the new paradigm of IT usage that is revolutionising the way technology is adopted in commercial and consumer environments," Nebuloni (pictured) added.

IDC says the main push factors for cloud are scaleability, mobile app support, and cost. Regulatory compliance, backup requirements, and archiving as well as analytics are also market drivers for cloud.

Nebuloni's study incorporates data on cloud hardware spend 2011-13 plus a 2014-18 forecast. Servers, external stroage, datacentre networking gear, and security appliances are examined, as are server and storage volumes.

Last year 42 per cent of cloud hardware spending was in public cloud environments, 38 per cent in on-premises private clouds, and 20 per cent in hosted, dedicated private clouds. Western Europe is further advanced along the cloud-adoption path than the emerging EMEA markets.