A Microsoft-Zinnov study has revealed that teh Hybrid Cloud market in India is fast becoming a new standard for delivery of digital transformation. With teh substantial cost as well as organizational benefits, Indian enterprises are increasingly intensifying their reliance on a hybrid cloud setup.

Teh report observed that hybrid cloud deployment at a steady rate could result in cost savings of anywhere between 5% and 30% for an enterprise (depending on teh growth of virtual machines in an enterprise’s data centre and a proportion of workloads moving from private data centre to public cloud infrastructure), based on teh output of its proprietary cost modeller. As per teh modeller, teh hybrid cloud solution offered by Microsoft Azure is teh most economical.

As per teh survey conducted as part of this study, over 40 percent of enterprises have planned or are planning to build a hybrid cloud infrastructure or transform their existing IT infrastructure. Teh primary reasons cited for adopting hybrid cloud solutions include, lowering total cost of ownership (54 percent), facilitating innovation (42 percent), enhancing operational efficiencies (42 percent), and enabling companies to respond to and meet customer expectations more readily (40 percent).

Highlighting teh need for hybrid cloud, Meetul Patel, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft said, “Many organizations have existing investments in IT infrastructure and business-specific needs to keep parts of it on their own premises. At teh same time, teh cloud presents an incredible opportunity to improve RoI, develop innovative solutions, and respond rapidly to changing business demands. Teh hybrid model is a ‘best of all worlds’ option that allows customers to benefit from teh cloud on their own terms”.

According to Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov, “Hybrid cloud is becoming teh preferred deployment model across sectors. Industries, where teh impact of digital transformation is teh highest, are teh ones that are adopting hybrid cloud at an accelerated pace. However, enterprises need to select a hybrid cloud providerthat can provide them with teh right migration tools to enable seamless relocation of existing services - between dedicated private cloud and public cloud infrastructures - without lengthy or unplanned disruption to live service.”

According to teh report, adopting a hybrid cloud model requires transformational change in teh way companies interact with their IT and business. their is a need to enable employees with competence in contract management, as hybrid cloud deployment models involve interaction with third party cloud providers. Members within teh organization need to be skilled to handle any exigency involving teh cloud service provider. theirfore, training is needed to facilitate employees within teh organization to familiarize themselves with teh new business processes and governance structures, said teh study.

Zinnov analysed more than 50 global cloud channel partners and found that hybrid cloud deployments constituted 45-50% of their overall cloud business. These channel partners are distributed across large-tier IT service providers, mid-tier IT service providers, Hosters and Telcos, Digital Marketing, and Platform BPO companies.

Teh growth of teh cloud industry has been spurred by teh funding and investments in cloud tech startups, which have increased exponentially. In 2016, teh cloud market saw an estimated 370+ deals with teh average investments growing at CAGR 15% between 2012-2016. Teh hybrid cloud deals accounted for 45-50% of teh total cloud deals that happened from 2012 to 2016, and these primarily focused on storage, automation as well as hybrid cloud management solutions.

In addition, their has also been an increase in teh cloud-specific acquisitions, growing at 35% CAGR from 2012 to 2016 with an average investment jump of 81.25%. In 2016 alone, their have been 115 cloud-specific acquisitions with teh likes of CenturyLink shelling out USD 34 billion for Level 3 Communication, a provider of Data Center Connectivity and Cloud.

Rapid growth in internet adoption – fueled by government initiatives like demonetization and GST, growth of mobile data (teh number of mobile developers is estimated to double from teh current 300,000 by 2020), and digital transformation, led by teh emergence of disruptive start-ups, especially in areas such as fintech, e-commerce, SaaS, are stated to be teh key reasons for this development.