Cloud adoption in ANZ is presenting new opportunities for VDI

Australia and New Zealand are leading the way for adoption of cloud services in the APAC region, according to a recent report by IDC Australia which was reported on in Channel Life.

However, according to IDC's five-band analysis of the various stages of cloud adoption, less than 1% of companies in ANZ have reached the fifth and final stage, or are approaching full maturity.

A lot of companies are currently in stages one and two, which suggests that there is a big move towards cloud services, but that many companies still have a long way to go before they can be considered as utilising the full scope of cloud services available to a modern enterprise.

One such option available to all stages of cloud adoption is the ability to move applications, security and end-point management into the cloud, thus adopting a virtual computing environment, otherwise known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI.

Moving to a cloud-based computing setup has many benefits for a company, including cheaper hardware deployments, simplified management and reduced running costs.

Using virtual desktop infrastructure allows a company to save on the costs associated with new hardware since in many cases IGEL's UDC3 can extend the life of existing hardware by as much as double.

This way, an enterprise can cut the cost of a hardware refresh, and reinvest that capital into the back-end, or the data center. A larger, faster and more reliable data center and network has benefits down the line as well, with better services for staff right throughout the company.

As companies begin to move to a more advanced stage of cloud maturity, these initial cost savings will become more important, due to this ongoing need for better data center resources.

The demand for faster storage and delivery will increase as more applications and services are brought into the cloud, so any savings in the near term should be reinvested.

This, in turn, will offer opportunities for resellers to focus on servers and networking, as well as the provision of managed data centers.

The IT marketplace is changing, and cloud adoption is driving much of this change. Smart enterprise and smart resellers can make big steps towards a more efficient future, and starting with a time-and-cost saving by moving to a VDI set-up is a great place to begin.