Brazilian firms shift to cloud to reignite innovation | ZDNet

Migration of systems to cloud environments is a key priority for IT decision makers in Brazil as a means to resume innovation initiatives, according to a new study.

Some 80 percent of Brazilian C-level executives in IT and analytics polled by analytics firm SAS see the shift to cloud as a key priority for 2019, with projects being developed or initiated in the coming year.

The study, which covered companies in retail, telecommunications, utilities, manufacturing, financial services, consumer goods and public sector, suggests that cloud is a reality in the agenda of most Brazilian organizations.

Some 39.4 percent of those polled have a cloud migration planned for the next six months to a year, while 27 percent stated they have pilots such as data analytics applications running on the cloud, with 11.4 percent claiming to have such cloud-based systems. But face data synchronization issues.

Key concerns for the Brazilian IT and data decision-makers polled in terms of migrating applications to the cloud is information security, cited by 66.6 percent of those surveyed, followed by data synchronization (57 percent) and service level agreements (22.8 percent).

The study also suggests that Brazilian firms are considering the adoption of container technology, which allows disparate processes to be executed under the same operating system, as an element of cloud migration, cited by 37.7 percent of the firms surveyed.

Additional technologies and techniques being considered to facilitate the migration to the cloud are application re-programming, cited by 32.4 percent of respondents, as well as re-hosting to public clouds, mentioned by 29.8 percent of those polled.

Companies should consider a hybrid approach, according to the research lead and global marketing director at SAS, Kleber Wedemann. “The combination of containers with analytics is transformational. It’s the type of migration that requires little re-coding and results in significant cost benefits in terms of storage.”

Lack of expertise to migrate systems to the cloud has also been mentioned by study participants, with 47.3 percent of companies saying they don’t have the skills needed to migrate and manage a cloud-based operation – but are planning to build internal expertise.

Some 27 percent of the survey participants are looking for an external supplier to help with their cloud migration needs, while 25.4 percent have cloud-trained DevOps teams handling the process.

The SAS survey polled 286 executives in Brazil between February and March 2019.

Brazilian organizations will see a surge in the adoption of the hybrid cloud computing approach , according to a separate report. Key reasons include a need to modernize infrastructure and greater speed in catering for business demands.

Brazil has also been making some improvements towards creating a better environment for the adoption of cloud computing: the country has climbed four positions in the Cloud Computing Scorecard research from the BSA, The Software Alliance.

The BSA report echoes some of the concerns voiced in the SAS report. It pointed out that cloud adoption in emerging markets is still lagging behind, mainly down to the lack of standards around cybersecurity.