EXPERT OPINION
moved ahead with cloud technologies also acknowledged a number of benefits , from scalability and speed to off-the-shelf , easily accessible SaaS tools .
Businesses with no legacy attitudes and equipment are also finding themselves in an advantageous situation and are much further along with their Digital Transformation journey . Evidence of this is found within the region ’ s vibrant start-up community , which is leveraging the cloud to build successful businesses in areas such as FinTech and online delivery services .
But the report also identifies a number of barriers to cloud adoption . Among those is a challenge that many businesses worldwide face right now : the skills shortage .
When it comes to the cloud , the skills shortage is being felt more acutely by African businesses . The report identifies that the current talent pool is not deep enough to sustain the growth in cloud adoption and that many organisations are unwilling to pay premiums for IT skills . Likewise , low levels of management awareness and understanding of cloud were also identified as holding back businesses .
The report also exposed some uncertainty around data sovereignty – with some survey respondents unsure about evolving legislation and the requirement to host data locally .
Something which is perhaps more uniquely an African challenge is around connectivity . Survey respondents pointed to the cost , reliability and speed of bandwidth as being the biggest barriers to cloud adoption in the region .
Addressing future network needs
Significant investment in new data centre infrastructure and subsea cable networks , coupled with the arrival of more hyperscale cloud providers , looks set to be the catalyst for cloud adoption in Africa .
But as businesses push ahead with their cloud journey and migrate more of their mission-critical workloads and applications to the cloud , now is a good time for them to re-evaluate their existing network architecture .
Many businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa today still access their cloud services via the public Internet .
Although this may appear convenient and affordable , it does not meet increasingly stringent requirements around security and performance when moving data and workloads between cloud services and the people and applications that require them .
The emergence of Network-as-a-Service ( NaaS ) platforms , such as Console Connect , can help businesses in Africa overcome this challenge . Advancements in Software-Defined Networking ( SDN ) has made it easier to access highperformance networks and create a dedicated connection to the cloud that drives efficiency and reduces cost for businesses .
It will be very interesting to see how the region leverages network automation to meet its future cloud needs . �
IT WILL BE VERY INTERESTING TO SEE HOW THE REGION LEVERAGES NETWORK AUTOMATION TO MEET ITS FUTURE CLOUD NEEDS .
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