EMC Hosts Third Edition of Public Sector Mega Workshop; Highlights Growing Interest Among Public Sector Entities in KSA to adopt Blended Cloud Models to Meet Changing Customer Requirements in the New Era of Mobile, Cloud and Big Data 

Riyadh, May 24, 2015: In line with its commitment to contribute to the government and community in Saudi Arabia, EMC hosted the third edition of its Annual Arabic Public Sector Mega Workshop to showcase latest technologies and discuss how they can help redefine the future of public services and national administration. 

Designed to be the first ‘All Arabic’ technology platform, the event brought together over 100 IT leaders from government agencies in the kingdom to exchange insights on the application of third platform technologies to drive e-government and smart service initiatives across the Kingdom. 
At the event, EMC announced the results findings of a new KSA based study that reveals public sector preferences of cloud computing models and the priorities that drive these investments.

The study reveals steadily increasing cloud adoption among public sector entities in Saudi Arabia:

• 44% of respondents surveyed have already implemented or plan to implement a cloud computing model 
• 42% stated to have currently implemented a private cloud model 
• 22% consider their environment to be a public cloud. 

Of those respondents who reported a preference for Private Cloud, 70% cited maximized scalability as being the decisive factor

Respondents from the public sector reported that while public cloud models seemed beneficial for increased scalability, the model posed a series of key concerns:

• 48% of respondents reported to be concerned about  privacy and security associated with public cloud models
• 22% cited concerns around ability of public cloud providers to meet SLOs
• 16% cited concerns with  overall maturity of the cloud computing models
• 14% of respondents reported capabilities around control and organization integration as being a cause for concern

The study conducted by Dun & Bradstreet (commissioned by EMC) also reveals a growing interest in Advanced Hybrid cloud solutions.

• 28% of respondents stated they have plans to implement an Advanced Hybrid Cloud model

Respondents reported to be inclined to adopting an Advanced Hybrid Cloud model cited a heightened need for flexibility that a blend of the two models allows:

• 42% said it is because of scalability and growth 
• 36% cited the flexibility to choose environments that best allow them to meet compliance and regulations for multi region operations as being a key factor
• 22% cited discretionary data storage as being a key factor

EXECUTIVE QUOTE
Talal Abdulaziz Al Bakr, Public Sector Manager for EMC Corporation, Saudi Arabia

“Public Sector enterprises in Saudi Arabia continue to stand at the leading edge of technology adoption to offer the national community access to faster, more enhanced services. This study clearly highlights the growing interest by public sector entities to adopt advanced hybrid cloud models that enable them to leverage the security, control and reliability of the private cloud model with the heightened scalability and cost effectiveness of the public cloud. EMC recognizes these needs and with the EMC Hybrid Cloud solutions, we look forward to enabling IT to rapidly deliver the services customers need and want from their government agencies.”

METHODOLOGY
Research carried out by Dun and Bradstreet (commissioned by EMC) in May 2015 to outline Public Sector perception towards cloud computing across KSA. 50 IT decision makers from the public sector were asked specific questions relating to their preferred method of cloud computing via a series of Computer Aided Telephone Interviews to arrive at the findings.