By 2022, over 90% of enterprises worldwide will be relying on a mix of on-premises/dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, and legacy platforms to meet their infrastructure needs. That’s according to the latest forecast from global technology research and consulting services firm International Data Corporation (IDC), which expects 2021 to be the year of multi-cloud, with the vast majority of enterprises deploying combinations of on-premises, off-premises, public, and private clouds as their default environments.

“The widespread disruption caused by the global COVID-19 outbreak has reinforced the critical importance of businesses being agile enough to scale up or down with fluctuations in demand,” says IDC’s Jyoti Lalchandani, group vice president & regional managing director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META). “A public cloud platform provides enterprises with an agile, scalable, and cost-effective IT infrastructure that supports their business processes. However, public cloud is not necessarily an appropriate option for all types of workloads. As such, some enterprises are choosing to keep certain workloads on-premises – using an in-house datacentere – or on private clouds. This approach helps them achieve better performance, 24/7 availability, enhanced security, and greater compliance with regulations.”

While uptake of multi-cloud architecture has started to gain momentum, not all businesses are sufficiently prepared to implement cloud roadmaps due to migration and skills-related challenges. “Just under 30% of medium-to-large organizations responding to IDC’s META CIO Survey 2020 highlighted migration as a key challenge,” says Lalchandani. “At the same time, 39% cited a lack of skills as an obstacle hindering their rollout of cloud strategies. To achieve success in their multi-cloud journeys, IDC advises businesses to take stock of their applications and develop a phased modernization roadmap for each one, thereby enabling them to make appropriate cloud decisions for the multi-cloud era.”

IDC will expand on this guidance during its inaugural IDC Regional Cloud Webinar for the Middle East region, which takes place on Tuesday, 21 April 2020 under theme ‘Envisioning a Resilient, Cloud-Based Digital Infrastructure’ . The webinar will showcase insights from cloud transformation pioneers, senior technology executives, and respected industry thought leaders as they offer advice on enacting resilient, long-term, cloud-based digital infrastructures that can propel organizations into the highly competitive future business landscape by facilitating game-changing future-of-work, data management, customer experience, and digital innovation strategies.

Combining informative presentations and interactive panel discussions, the webinar will provide more than 300 executives from across a broad range of industries with the expert guidance required to effectively benchmark their own cloud adoption strategies. IDC’s valued partners for this exclusive, invitation-only event include Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, CommScope, and Software AG as Platinum Partners and Veeam, Nutanix, GBI, and Mimecast as Gold Partners.