Public cloud migration and adoption has shifted from a question of ‘if’ to ‘when’ for nearly all organizations with legacy infrastructure. This is not to say that on-premise computing will cease to exist, because there are certain workloads that will remain on-prem for the foreseeable future due to regulatory and compliance restrictions, but some level of cloud competency has become all but required due to the cost efficiencies, scalability, reliability, and other benefits associated with public cloud deployments.
The leading indicators are beginning to appear, with 10% of organizations having already shut down their traditional data centers. Gartner expects this trend to accelerate, predicting that within the next five years, 80% of enterprises will have shuttered their traditional data centers in favor of more flexible deployment methods.
As organizations continue moving towards the public cloud, the demand for cloud skills will outweigh the supply of available resources, creating a shortage of cloud services professionals. In response to this labor shortage, many adjusting their infrastructure strategy will be forced to outsource migration/adoption work, at least initially, to service providers with the necessary experience and expertise to execute against the shift in strategy. These service providers not only provide access to valuable skills and resources, they also increase speed to execution by removing the need to recruit and onboard a cloud services team, and they reduce the overhead associated with the transition – a theme that should resonate with organizations shifting away from overhead-intensive infrastructure.
As the public cloud market matures and organizations increasingly adopt cloud-first and cloud-native approaches, the initial planning and migration work will subside, forcing service providers to prove value through various ongoing and differentiated service offerings. That said, the increasing complexity of cloud environments will make it more difficult for organizations to bring this function in-house, and the growing demand for highly specialized services such as cloud native application development and data science will create a clear path for service providers to add value.
Effectual is ready to answer this call, with many of the original members of the Datapipe team coming back together to form an asset-light cloud managed services provider with decades of combined experience. Led by Robb Allen, the Effectual team has anticipated these dynamics and positioned itself to serve as a trusted partner to many of the largest commercial enterprises and public sector organizations, guiding them along their public cloud journey.
Catalyst believes in the Effectual team, shares their vision, and is proud to have partnered with them to help fund their first acquisition, JHC Technology, a leading public sector managed services provider that will equip Effectual with a solid foundation in the public sector while augmenting their existing capabilities in cloud-first managed services.
In the years to come, we will see most organizations adopt cloud-first and cloud-native approaches while diversifying across multiple public clouds. This complex, multi-cloud world will become an increasingly daunting task for organizations to navigate on their own, causing them to seek help from cloud experts that will allow them to Cloud Confidently® as the Effectual team so adequately puts it.
Catalyst is excited about the opportunity ahead of Effectual and eager to begin our partnership with Robb and the Effectual team.