Singapore Businesses Suffer Major Cloud Setbacks and Failures According to Independent Study Commissioned by iland

SINGAPORE, Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- A survey conducted by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) on behalf of iland, a leading enterprise cloud infrastructure provider, reveals that cloud challenges plague many Singapore businesses. In fact, 86 percent of Singapore respondents reported they experienced at least one unexpected obstacle with their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, and downtime, performance, support and pricing topped the list of issues.

The survey polled more than 100 professionals from medium to large enterprises within Singapore, and findings were published as part of the global study titled, "Casualties of Cloud Wars: Customers Are Paying the Price." Despite the reported challenges, companies continue to pursue cloud adoption as they seek to curb shadow IT (35 percent) and achieve faster scaling of existing workloads (53 percent), faster deployment of new workloads (49 percent) and less application downtime (45 percent).

Survey findings highlight adoption trends and unexpected challenges in Singapore

• Amongst Singapore businesses, deployment speed (52 percent), rapid scalability (48 percent) and cost (48 percent) are considered to be the top advantages to hosting workloads in the public cloud. In addition to these well-known benefits, 45 percent of respondents indicated disaster recovery capabilities are also a key advantage.
• More Singapore respondents reported downtime (48 percent) and performance (44 percent) issues than those in the U.S. and Europe. Other top unexpected challenges included support (39 percent) and pricing (39 percent).
• Customers of VMware vCloud-based service providers report the highest success (62 percent) and lowest failure rates (38 percent), defined as stalled or unsuccessful (tried but failed) adoption.
• Public cloud customers of Rackspace reported the highest failure rates (60 percent), followed by Amazon Web Services (58 percent) and Microsoft Azure (56 percent).
• More than half of the Singapore respondents only have one or two people exclusively responsible for managing public cloud resources.

"Stories about successful cloud implementations are captivating, but the reality is that cloud is more complex than many news headlines make it out to be," said Dennis Drogseth, vice president, EMA. "Companies must be self-aware. Unless they have an experienced staff that can optimize their investments in the mass-market systems of the big providers, they should consider cloud vendors that take a different, personalized approach."

"The reality is that despite the numerous business benefits for adopting cloud, companies are still experiencing a number of challenges that prevent them from achieving their operational efficiency and revenue goals," said Dante Orsini, senior vice president at iland. "The survey reinforces the frustrations we hear from companies all the time. It is clear that many Singapore businesses -- not unlike companies throughout the world -- have limited internal resources for managing public cloud deployments and therefore require the best tools and support from their cloud providers. It's why our customers come to us."

Cloud customers call for better support, management tools and transparency

• Singapore respondents require external support to operate public cloud, with security and compliance services needed most often (64 percent), followed by ongoing management support (54 percent), integration with local data center (53 percent) and disaster recovery planning (49 percent).
• Fifty-seven percent of respondents expressed the need for better management dashboards. Currently, many public cloud vendors do not provide visibility into detailed real-time and historical data on performance and billing, complicating the management of public clouds and associated budgets.
• Singapore businesses agreed that high quality (99 percent) and highly available (97 percent) phone-based support is critical to their cloud implementations. Many public clouds offer separate, costly support contracts that both surprise customers and negatively impact cost reduction goals.
• 100 percent of Singapore respondents agree that targeting workloads toward data centers in specific regions for compliance and data sovereignty is important or very important. This, too, is offered at a premium with most clouds, and many companies are confused about what happens to workloads in the case of a disaster or data center maintenance.
• Forty-six percent of respondents called for more transparent pricing, emphasizing the challenge of inscrutable and multi-faceted cloud pricing models and the resulting bills.

"It is clear that businesses in the APAC region have developed a keen understanding of where their teams need help and what capabilities are required to make the cloud more accessible," said Lilac Schoenbeck, VP of product management and marketing at iland. "In order to avoid the typical cloud pitfalls, businesses must evaluate their internal resources -- including technology, personnel, expertise and budget -- and choose a cloud vendor that offers the services, support and functionality that can address their specific needs."

For more information on the EMA survey and iland's Enterprise Cloud Services:

• EMA whitepaper: Casualties of Cloud Wars: Customers Are Paying the Price
• Overview and demo of Enterprise Cloud Services portal

About iland

With data centers in the U.S., U.K. and Singapore, iland delivers proven enterprise cloud solutions that help companies do business faster, smarter and more flexibly. Unlike any other provider, iland's technology and consultative approach mean anyone -- regardless of expertise, location or business objective -- can experience the benefits of a hassle-free cloud. From scaling production workloads, to supporting testing and development, to disaster recovery, iland's secure cloud and decades of experience translate into unmatched service. Underscoring the strength of its platform, the company has been recognized as VMware's Service Provider Partner of the Year, Global and Americas. Visit www.iland.com.

Asia-Pacific Media Contact:
EASTWEST PR for iland Cloud
Melinda Ilagan / Grace Yu
+65 6222 0306
ilandcloud@eastwestpr.com

iland Media Contact:
Kellie Willman
iland
+1 713-337-1347
kwillman@iland.com

Additional Resources:

Download the white paper to discover:
The clouds with the highest failure rates
Unexpected obstacles customers have encountered during cloud deployments
Factors others consider critical to succeed in cloud