EU Business News Q3 2018

16 EU BUSINESS NEWS / Q3 2018 , ISG Expands Provider Evaluations to the UK ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant series launched with report evaluating providers offering infrastructure, data centre and private cloud services. Information Services Group (ISG), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, announced on the 17th August 2018 it is expanding its ISG Provider Lens™ research coverage to the UK, with a report evaluating providers offering infrastructure, data centre and private cloud services in this market. The ISG Provider Lens Infrastructure and Data Center/ Private Cloud Quadrant Report evaluates 45 providers serving the UK market across five quadrants: Managed Services and Transformation – Midmarket; Managed Services and Transformation – Large Accounts; Managed Hosting – Midmarket; Managed Hosting – Large Accounts, and Colocation. The ISG research found enterprise demand in the UK for managed services and transformation offerings has increased dramatically in the last year, with many providers achieving double-digit growth. Much of that growth can be attributed to the rise in digital services, and the corresponding use of hybrid models, in which on-premises, private and public cloud are united and operating on a single, integrated platform. The business itself, rather than IT, is the big consumer of managed services. Business leaders expect flexible, scalable services that can be deployed in the shortest amount of time possible. Numerous providers are specialising in and are prepared to meet these requirements, with many also offering backup, network, and software-defined data centre (SDDC) services, ISG has found. Security also is a major consideration for enterprise buyers, even more so following the enactment of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May. Managed hosting is a mature market in the UK, one that is increasingly being expanded to include cloud-based solutions and applications support, ISG found. Combining traditional and cloud services results in faster provisioning of additional services, more self-service options and flexible billing models, such as usage- based pricing. With the UK’s upcoming withdrawal from the EU, providers in this space, like those in managed services, must ensure that GDPR and other EU compliance requirements are strictly adhered to. ISG also has found that interest in colocation services has risen sharply in recent years and should continue to grow. Colocation providers, particularly those servicing the financial centre in London, are responding to the increased demand by expanding their infrastructure facilities and adding new services, such as staff augmentation. Connectivity services also are being enhanced to create faster links to internet exchange nodes and hyperscale public cloud providers. ISG noted that colocation providers are offering their facilities to cloud service providers, in addition to enterprises wishing to relocate their on-premises infrastructure. “The managed services market in the UK has increased significantly, fuelled by the dramatic growth in cloud-based services,” said Barry Matthews, partner and head of ISG UK and Ireland. “Large enterprises will continue to outsource more of their mission-critical IT, and the explosion of digital services will only increase this demand. Midmarket buyers, too, are more open to cloud solutions. Providers are responding by expanding their offerings to include hybrid infrastructure hosting, hyperscale solutions, data security, storage, networking and software environment support.” In its report, ISG named BT, Fujitsu and T-Systems as leaders in the Managed Services and Transformation – Midmarket quadrant; Atos, BT, Capgemini, Computacenter, DXC Technology, HCL, IBM and TCS as leaders in the Managed Services and Transformation – Large Accounts quadrant; Atos Canopy, BT, Claranet, Fujitsu, Rackspace and T-Systems as leaders in the Managed Hosting – Midmarket quadrant; Atos Canopy, BT, Capgemini, DXC Technology and IBM as leaders in the Managed Hosting – Large Accounts quadrant, and BT, Digital Realty, Equinix, Global Switch, Interxion and Telehouse as leaders in the Colocation quadrant. BT was the only provider to be named a leader across all five quadrants.