Channel can help users with inefficient cloud usage

Spending on cloud infrastructure continues to increase but there are serious questions around efficiency that the channel can help users answer.

Figures from Canalys indicated that worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure services hit $17bn in Q1, which was a 47% improvement on the same period last year.

The big three - AWS, Microsoft and Google - command 55% of the total market and in the race to the top Amazon Web Services is out the front with revenues that are not far off double those of Microsoft's.

The growth in cloud services has been fueled by the digital transformation trend but there are some questions about usage that resellers could help customers deal with.

“According to a Canalys survey of 146 channel partners around the world, over 80% of respondents believe their customers’ cloud expenditure is not fully used,” said Daniel Liu, research analyst at Canalys.

“58% of partners believe up to 20% of their customers’ cloud investment is wasted, while 26% think the wastage is more than 20%," he added.

Savvy resellers will target this issue and increase the support they can provide those customers that are wrestling with various cloud platforms.

“The main role for channel partners after migrating and integrating customer workloads to a hybrid environment will be giving them greater visibility into available cloud resources to optimize use. This will be driven by analytics and, in future, machine learning to identify the optimal cloud package or subscription," said Lui.

But the fly in the soup comes in the shape of skill shortages with it far from certain that the channel is in a position to step in and help customers maximise the efficiency of a complex hybrid environment.

"The skills needed for workload cloud migration, consumption monitoring, billing analytics, cloud consultation and integration services are in short supply,” he added.