Cloud use in German companies: Euphoria or restraint?

So what now? On the one hand, market observers here in Germany are also talking about the triumph of cloud computing (e.g. Bitkom "Two out of three companies use cloud computing"), on the other hand, in a recent DSAG survey only ten per cent of German SAP users said they would move their ERP solution to the cloud and demanded "less cloud-only development" from SAP.

What are the reasons for this seemingly different assessment of cloud computing use in Germany?

Not all clouds are created equal

On the one hand, when comparing current market figures on the subject of cloud computing, one must be careful not to compare the famous "apples and oranges". When Bitkom talks about cloud computing in general, it naturally takes into account every type of cloud service - from software solutions to cloud storage to computing power obtained from the cloud. And in fact there will hardly be a company in Germany that is not already "in the cloud" at one point or another. Often, the IT department is not even aware of this, for example when a file sharing service is used in a specialist department or the boss simply pulls a few documents into Dropbox to access them at home or on the road. The issue of "shadow IT" is still a big problem in many companies. Simply booking a cloud service with a credit card makes onboarding easy, but control is almost impossible.

For this reason, the IT department will also do everything to ensure that business-critical applications - and this certainly includes the SAP ERP system mentioned at the beginning - do not simply migrate to the cloud. In addition, it is of course also a matter of further protecting the investments made in the expansion and operation of the system in recent years.

So it really depends on the context and application scenario in which cloud use is mentioned. Incidentally, this is also illustrated by further facts from the DSAG survey cited at the beginning: in the area of marketing and sales, 48 percent of respondents use cloud-based solutions. Although this result is still far from the two-thirds calculated by Bitkom, it still paints a much more positive picture of cloud use than the ten per cent in the ERP area.

ZEP: Free choice of operating model

Of course, it is best if the provider gives the user the choice of whether he wants to install and use the solution in on-premise operation at his company or obtain it as a cloud service from the provider's data centre. The company provantis IT Solutions offers exactly this freedom of choice for its solution ZEP - Time Recording for Projects.

In recent years, there has been a clear trend towards using ZEP in the cloud computing model - new customers now almost exclusively opt for the cloud service. This is operated as a "Cloud Service Made in Germany" in a certified (ISO 27001, IT basic protection) high-performance data centre on a fully redundant, highly available server cluster in Germany. The internet connection to the ZEP servers is provided at 1000 Mbit/s via redundant fibre optic lines. The usage contract concluded between ZEP customers and provantis naturally also includes the contract for order processing that has been mandatory since the EU Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO) came into force.

However, customers who still opt for on-premise operation in the company today can be just as sure that their investment will also be secured in the medium term. Further information on the functions, additional modules and operating models of ZEP are available at the ZEP website available.