INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
South Africa needs cloud
specialists to fully realise
cloud technology
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Andrew Cruise, Routed CEO
Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and
Machine Learning.
Cruise says that many of the leading cloud
players are already in South Africa, but that
the opportunities are still in its infancy.
“The continent is still in an early adoption
phase, but all indicators point to massive
growth potential,” said Cruise.
T
he race to the cloud continues as
South Africa is slowly transforming
into a digital economy. Andrew
Cruise, CEO, Routed, a cloud infrastructure
provider, says that South Africa’s cloud
maturity levels are still lower than other
countries, but the market looks promising.
“From a data centre perspective, we have seen
the market double in the past five years and
it is still growing more than 10% annually,”
said Cruise. “This is a strong indication of the
overall growth of the cloud market.”
One area that Cruise says that has impacted
cloud adoption is that of supporting
infrastructure. “This has been a significant
legacy issue, often plaguing the adoption
of cloud technology, but South Africa is now
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meeting the conditions required for the
reliable implementation of cloud strategies.
Whether it is private, hybrid or public cloud,
South Africa has established a stronger
infrastructure base and is starting to realise
the benefits of cloud.”
Cruise says that this, however, is not the
case across the borders, creating more
opportunity within countries, but also long-
term options for those willing to take the
leap further into the continent.
Driving cloud adoption is still the desire to
digitally transform, within the enterprise
specifically a requirement to not only
digitise, but to improve IT agility and
mobility, as well as to address leading
technology trends such as Internet of
He says that another one of the biggest
challenges impeding cloud adoption and
overall digitisation is cloud skills.
“There are simply not enough people with
the experience and knowledge to effectively
roll out an entire digitisation strategy,
making the overall project difficult and
potentially risky,” added Cruise.
It is for these reasons that the market has
seen the rise of colocation offerings and
the establishment of businesses such as
Routed, which provides cloud infrastructure.
Encompassing the required skills and
know-how, Cruise says these cloud-focused
companies, will help close the digital gap
significantly, and is one of the only ways
digitisation will become a permanent and
viable option. n
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