In IT, flexibility is the name of the game, with nearly one in two German companies already using cloud services. As the world’s biggest cloud technology show, CeBIT features all the latest cloud solutions and realworld application scenarios, not to mention an exciting and comprehensive lineup of cloud-related presentations and special displays.
Hannover, Germany. For businesses, the cloud offers virtually unlimited scope for online storage, processing and software infrastructure. Users of cloud services enjoy many key benefits: they are at the forefront of the digitalization trend, they expend less time and capital on hardware and software acquisition and maintenance, and their IT infrastructure is scalable and readily adaptable to changing requirements. Nearly 50 percent of German companies lease web-based IT infrastructure. And while cloud computing was once the exclusive preserve of large corporations, it is now increasingly being adopted by SMEs, who see it as a way of reducing costs and boosting efficiency.
In Germany, private cloud solutions, which are hosted on companies’ own dedicated servers, are the most popular cloud variant. According to last year’s Cloud-Monitor report by KPMG and Bitkom Research, about three quarters of German companies believe private cloud systems will improve in-house access to their IT resources, and three quarters of German companies that use private cloud solutions have actually achieved this objective. Alternatives to private clouds include public cloud solutions, where the requisite IT services or software are entirely managed by external service providers, and the increasingly popular hybrid cloud solutions, which involve a mix of the private and public cloud models.
CeBIT showcases the diverse benefits of cloud solutions
for all industries For businesses of all kinds ? and particularly for SMEs ? CeBIT is the No. 1 source of information on cloud solutions. Cloud computing, in all its many shapes and forms, is a key theme in all areas of CeBIT, including the Business Security showcase in Hall 6, the CeBIT Global Conferences in Hall 8, “DatacenterDynamics@CeBIT” in Hall 12, the new Internet of Things display in Hall 13, and the Hannover premiere of the Salesforce World Tour in halls 19/20 and 23. In Hall 23, on each day of the fair, different Salesforce partners will demonstrate how companies can expedite their digital transformation and optimize their customer focus. SAP is also showcasing its capability as an innovative driver of the digitalization trend. The centerpiece of its exhibition stand in Hall 4 will be the fully integrated SAP HANA cloud platform, which allows user companies to evolve their business processes and software in an agile and holistic fashion.
Other major players in Hall 4 at this year’s CeBIT include Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft. Both companies will be presenting new cloud solutions that focus on security and transparency. Deutsche Telekom will showcase a new public cloud service which it developed in partnership with Huawei and which will be hosted in a data center near Magdeburg, Germany. The service is designed for companies of all sizes that wish to access IT infrastructure services, such as processing capacity, data storage or bandwidth, on a pay-as-you-go basis. Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that its Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online services for German customers will soon be provided via its own German cloud.
The change is designed to appeal to German companies and organizations from sectors with particularly sensitive data, such as the finance, healthcare and public sectors. Microsoft’s 2,000-square-meter showcase at CeBIT will feature a number of partner companies. One of them, the Swiss-based ABB Group, is exhibiting its electric vehicle fastcharging service platforms developed in collaboration with Microsoft and networked by means of Microsoft Azure.
More and more companies turn to the cloud
The benefits of cloud solutions are already available to companies of all sizes, thanks to today’s mobile end devices, which can run virtual desktops as apps. Employers are increasingly leveraging this by pushing software, including proprietary applications, leased SaaS applications and secure mobile apps, out to their employees via enterprise app stores.
Employees can thus access their work desktops anywhere, anytime and on any device, be it a PC, Mac tablet or smartphone.
The consulting firm IDC estimates that around 60 percent of companies’ IT infrastructure and nearly 70 percent of commercial software will be cloud based by 2020. In that year, expenditures on cloud services and the mechanisms to support them will exceed $500 billion, triple today’s total For more information on all cloud service providers and solutions at this year’s CeBIT, use the exhibitor and product search engine at www.cebit.de.
