Here's Why NaaS Is Crucial To Wider Cloud Adoption?

Authored by Prasanna C, General Manager & Head of Business, Polarin

The outbreak of the pandemic was a disruptive event that accelerated cloud adoption across all industries. The cloud transitioned from being a technology to help enterprises reduce operational expenses and to ensure business continuity to being central for business growth, transformation and innovation.

The recent Oliver Wyman report in partnership with NASSCOM says that cloud technology will account for 8% of India's GDP by 2026 and will create as many as 14 million jobs. Besides providing unmatched scalability, the cloud is helping enterprises enhance competitiveness, boost innovation and improve productivity. While startups and new-age enterprises are adopting a cloud-first approach, big enterprises are adopting multi-cloud solutions.  

Shortage of skilled resources, security and more… 

Even as more and more Indian enterprises are realizing the vast potential and benefits of adopting the cloud, it must be acknowledged that migrating or adopting the cloud is not without challenges. The IT teams are struggling to manage increasingly complex hybrid and multi-cloud network infrastructure while ensuring business agility, flexibility and scalability. Moreover, the growing popularity of remote and hybrid work and the associated bandwidth-guzzling applications only add to the ever-increasing complications of managing cloud networks. 

Apart from the growing cloud complexity, one of the biggest challenges faced by Indian enterprises in their cloud journey is the acute shortage of skilled resources. A recent NASSCOM report says India ranks third in the world with 608,000 cloud professionals and this number is likely to grow at 24% CAGR by 2025. While this means the pool of skilled cloud professionals will increase by nearly 2.5 times to reach 1.5 million by 2025, it will still not be enough to meet the demand of 2.2 million by 2025. This also indicates that organizations might need to pay more to hire and retain the right talent. 

Further, the IT teams must address the ever-growing security challenges as they migrate data and processes to the cloud. In addition, IT decision-makers are under immense pressure to enhance network reliability and performance while controlling costs. This is a problem in the existing practices as the organizations are typically locked in long-term contracts where they must pay in full irrespective of whether they utilize the network bandwidth or not, thus resulting in a wastage of resources. 

The Growing Relevance of NaaS

The growing cloud complexity, along with the talent crunch then, makes it imperative for enterprises to use Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platforms to better manage their cloud infrastructure. In simple terms, a NaaS is a network interconnection fabric for designing, deploying, monitoring, and scaling a seamless hybrid cloud experience and much more through a point, click, and consume interface, leading to considerable ease of management and cost savings for the organization. It allows enterprises to digitize and scale quickly, as required. The long and tedious procurement process for additional bandwidth is a thing of the past with a NaaS platform.

A NaaS platform addresses several challenges faced by IT teams in cloud adoption. First, it allows the IT teams to record considerable savings in terms of the time and effort spent on maintaining the network. In addition, using a  NaaS platform to manage the network doesn't demand as much training and competency from network professionals as required to manage the cloud infrastructure. This is significant considering the massive talent crunch faced by the industry. The ease of management of a  NaaS platform means that the in-house talent can be better utilized by being assigned tasks of strategic importance.

As more businesses embrace cloud technologies, the need for reliable, secure, and flexible network infrastructure becomes paramount. A NaaS platform not only addresses this need but also empowers enterprises to harness the full potential of the cloud by seamlessly connecting data centers, hybrid and multi-cloud environments, SaaS applications, and more.

The benefits of a NaaS platform are manifold. It provides organizations with a highly available, low-latency network that ensures 100% uptime, enabling uninterrupted operations and exceptional user experiences. By simplifying network management and reducing complexity, businesses can achieve significant cost savings and enhance operational efficiency. This also facilitates faster deployment and scalability, allowing enterprises to adapt quickly to evolving business needs and seize growth opportunities.

It is crucial for businesses to recognize that relying on legacy approaches to design and build networks for their multi-cloud journey is inadequate. These traditional methods fall short in meeting the required business service level agreements (SLAs). A NaaS platform addresses this challenge head-on, delivering a future-proof network architecture designed specifically for the demands of the modern digital landscape.

By allowing enterprises to circumvent the challenges of cloud adoption, NaaS is emerging as a key enabler for cloud adoption and, consequently, for the digital transformation of enterprises. As the digital transformation era accelerates, organizations must embrace innovative solutions like Polarin's NaaS platform to overcome challenges, unlock the true power of the cloud, and drive business growth. As more and more enterprises adopt the cloud, they will gravitate towards NaaS because of its simplicity, flexibility and unmatched ease of operations.