Cloud Infrastructure to drive UAE Cloud Computing Market

The UAE cloud market is still in early stages of adoption with the implementation of private Infrastructure-as-a-service (laas) viewed by many as a critical first step towards broader cloud adoption. The biggest challenges to cloud adoption are data privacy concerns, compliance, regulatory issues and infrastructure integration problems. Today, many countries in the region have data residency requirements which means that data has to reside in that country.

To capture the growing cloud computing market, big players like Oracle, SAP, Amazon among others are setting up their data centers in the region to keep pace with the growing customer base.

The US software giant, Oracle is set to open its first cloud data center in the Middle East & Africa in Abu Dhabi between May & August. It will be the company’s 29th center globally. Global Vendors such as SAP and Alibaba have data centers in Dubai while Amazon has it in Bahrain.

According to research firm International Data Corporation, public cloud spending in the region is expected to cross $1.1 billion (Dh4 billion) this year compared to previous year. Many organizations now can reap the benefits of cloud computing such as quick deployment of IT resources, resource sharing within the security of their own organizations.

Oracle believes that cloud computing infrastructure will be the base for UAE’s ambitious plan in the field of Artificial Intelligence and IoT. Arun Khehar, senior vice-president of applications at Oracle Eastern Central Europe, Middle East, Africa, believes that there is a great cloud opportunity for Oracle for three key reasons — Smart City and Expo 2020, Saudi Arabia Vision 2030 and Abu Dhabi Vision 2030.