According to Wasabi Technologies’ 2024 Global Cloud Storage Index, European organizations continue to be plagued by storage costs, as 50% of all cloud storage costs in EMEA go toward data access and usage fees, rather than capacity charges.
Still, companies in EMEA see the value of cloud storage services and plan to increase spending in 2024 to drive IT initiatives such as application or infrastructure migration and development, and to improve business operations such as digital transformation or modernization and operating plans.
The Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index, commissioned by Vanson Bourne, reveals changing attitudes toward public cloud storage adoption, factors influencing storage purchasing decisions, and market priorities. Wasabi surveyed 1,200 global IT decision makers who are involved in their organizations’ storage strategies.
“Organizations around the world are increasing their use and budgets for public cloud storage solutions, and Europe is no exception,” said Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies and a former IDC analyst.
“Like the rest of the world, European cloud storage users still face storage costs, but despite this, the region still shows a healthy preference for ‘cloud first’ decisions when it comes to IT service adoption.”
Businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa spend more on cloud storage than their global peers. In the EMEA region, organizations spend an average of 50% of their cloud storage budget on expenses rather than storage capacity, compared to the global average of 47%. However, compared with other countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the percentage of the bill allocated to expenses in the UK is slightly lower at 48%, while Germany has the highest at 51.5%.
In 2023, the majority of EMEA respondents will exceed their cloud storage budget. France has the highest surplus rate at 57%, followed by the UK (55%) and Germany (51%).
Europe’s “cloud-first” and “multi-cloud” mentality
Europe is slightly ahead of the global curve in pursuing a “cloud-first” strategy for IT services adoption (as opposed to any alternative requiring own or on-premises IT infrastructure), at 44%, compared to the global average of 42%. This difference is mainly caused by Germany (51% “cloud first”) and France (47% “cloud first”).
When choosing a cloud storage provider, EMEA respondents prioritized integration with existing third-party applications such as Salesforce and Veeam (43%), security and compliance features (40%) and Sustainability (39%). In addition, the EMEA region continues to explore the adoption of multiple cloud storage providers. When asked about the top drivers for adopting multi-cloud, 48% of EMEA respondents said it was to avoid vendor lock-in, making it the top reason.
Adoption of AI/ML technologies and services will drive innovation but also create new cloud storage challenges
In terms of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, 99% of EMEA respondents said they have adopted or plan to adopt AI/ML in 2024, due in large part to accelerating product/service innovation needs and create operational efficiencies. Overall, generative AI is the top use case in EMEA. However, national-level AI/ML technology priorities vary:
- Germany ranks GenAI fourthth Its top artificial intelligence use cases. Leading GenAI are product design artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions (49%), security and compliance solutions (47%), and computer vision solutions (38%).
- The UK ranks significantly above the norm for AI/ML solutions for document processing or creation. This is their second largest use case (48%), behind GenAI (52%)
- France ranks predictive analytics as the second-largest AI use case (39%), behind GenAI (47%).
Regardless of what AI/ML workloads an organization is implementing or planning to implement, 96% of EMEA respondents believe they will face new cloud storage issues related to AI/ML. The issues of greatest concern in the EMEA region include:
- Requires data to be stored in a wider range of locations (e.g., core data center and edge/remote locations – 46%)
- Meet new data backup, protection and recovery requirements (43%)
- New or increased storage migration/movement needs (including hybrid or multi-cloud storage – 42%)
Jon Howes, vice president and general manager of EMEA at Wasabi Technologies, commented: “Wasabi’s annual research shows once again that advancements in off-site cloud storage solutions are a direction that almost all businesses are taking, and with the rise of artificial intelligence This direction is becoming even more necessary for cloud adoption/machine learning applications. However, growing dissatisfaction with unnecessary fees and vendor lock-in, as highlighted by the UK market regulator’s investigation, is setting the stage for cloud adoption in the EMEA region Prioritizing organization creates navigational challenges.”
To read the full 2024 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index, please visit here. Asia Pacific survey results for the 2024 Cloud Storage Index have also been published.
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Wasabi commissioned independent market research firm Vanson Bourne to conduct a study on cloud storage. The study surveyed 1,200 IT decision-makers who are at least involved in or responsible for public cloud storage procurement in their organizations. The study was conducted in November and December 2023 by organizations with more than 100 employees across all public and private sectors.
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