The demand for cloud computing solutions witnessed several ups and downs throughout 2019. After a decline in the revenues of second quarter of 2019, spending on cloud IT infrastructure rose in the third quarter.

Projections from IT research firm Gartner shows that the cloud market will grow 17 per cent in 2020 to total $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019. The industry will be worth $354.6 billion by 2022 with several large and small businesses turning to cloud solutions.

The trend of companies investing on cloud products is also likely to get better, predicts International Data Corporation (IDC) in its Worldwide Semiannual Security Spending Guide. Worldwide spending on security products and services will enjoy solid growth over the next five years as organizations continue to invest in solutions to meet a wide range of security threats and requirements, said the organisation.

“Worldwide spending on security-related hardware, software, and services will be $106.6 billion in 2019, an increase of 10.7% over 2018. This amount will reach $151.2 billion in 2023 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4% over the 2019-2023 forecast period,” said IDC in its updated forecasts.

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This renewed interest in market is primarily due to the trust place on security solutions by top management under the current scenario of risks, privacy concerns, networking and business operations. Organizations now understand encryption is not mere a one-time affair that can solve all the security concerns.

“Today’s new trust environment introduces new variables that go beyond the traditional ideas of security, risk and compliance, introducing concepts of privacy and ethical business operations. Trust is addressed in consideration of the relationships (B2B, B2C, B2E and G2C) and the attributes of interaction (people, technology, organization, culture and process). Given the complexity of implementing Trust, cybersecurity vendors are the clear beneficiaries,” said Frank Dickson, program vice president, Cybersecurity Products at IDC.

After a strong performance in 2018, this market segment witnessed several ups and downs, creating a fluctuation IT infrastructure vendors.

IDC adds services will receive the largest share of security spending worldwide in 2019 with more than $47 billion going toward managed security services, integration services, consulting services, and IT education and training. Software will be the second largest area of spending in 2019 with nearly $38 billion being allocated to a range of products, including endpoint security software, identity and digital trust software, and security analytics, intelligence, response and orchestration software. Hardware spending will be more than $21 billion this year with much of that total going to network security products.

Banking will be the industry that spends the most on security solutions throughout the forecast, followed by discrete manufacturing and federal/central government. Together, these three industries will account for nearly 30% of all security spending worldwide.

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Gartner forecasts that cloud system infrastructure services, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which will reach $50 billion in 2020. IaaS is forecast to grow 24% year over year, which is the highest growth rate across all market segments. This growth is attributed to the demands of modern applications and workloads, which require infrastructure that traditional data centers cannot meet.

“At this point, cloud adoption is mainstream,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “The expectations of the outcomes associated with cloud investments therefore are also higher. Adoption of next-generation solutions are almost always ‘cloud-enhanced’ solutions, meaning they build on the strengths of a cloud platform to deliver digital business capabilities.”

As organizations increase their reliance on cloud technologies, IT teams are rushing to embrace cloud-built applications and relocate existing digital assets. “Building, implementing and maturing cloud strategies will continue to be a top priority for years to come,” added Nag.

As the demand for adoption of cloud technology, cloud migration scales up across the world, spending on infrastructure will rise but subjected to several number of factors such as services offered, organization size, geographical regions, applications, and so on.