Cloud and Hosting18.04.2023

Best South African software companies for cloud migration and digital transformation

Several experienced cloud consulting companies can help South African businesses migrate their online platforms to the cloud.

Major “hyperscale” cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud have seen substantial growth in the past few years.

The biggest of the lot — AWS — has seen its revenue surge from around $3.1 billion in 2013 to just under $80.1 billion in 2022.

In the broader industry, Fortune Business Insights has projected the cloud computing market’s value will grow from roughly $480 billion in 2022 to $1.7 trillion by 2029.

Closer to home, 61% of companies in Africa that operate within the cloud planned to increase their spending on cloud services in the year ahead, according to the Cloud in Africa 2023 study by World Wide Worx.

Naturally, the vast majority of cloud customers are businesses that are increasingly migrating their customer-facing and backend systems to the cloud.

Cloud services offer a plethora of benefits over running digital platforms with on-premise solutions.

Depending on your needs, cloud computing can be more cost-effective and offers greater scalability and flexibility than traditional hosting.

It also removes the cost of running your own hardware for larger operations, including overheads like upgrades, maintenance, and server and networking equipment replacements.

Another advantage of the cloud is that you pay for what you need, when you need it, whereas on-premise solutions might be over- or under-specced for the task at hand.

Using the cloud can also enable your IT infrastructure staff and software developer teams to spend time on innovation and other critical areas.

In addition, the cloud lets you scale capabilities and features quickly as demand increases instead of attempting to forecast and roll out enough equipment to meet that demand.

Furthermore, cloud services come with redundancy that can significantly lower the length of unplanned downtime.

Aside from the prominent cloud service infrastructure providers, there are numerous cloud solutions on the market catering for specific industries and service types.

Choosing the best option for your company can be a challenge.

Fortunately, South Africa has several reputable cloud consultancy firms that can help organisations identify the ideal solutions and strategy for their cloud migration.

Below we have listed some of the well-established and trusted providers of cloud migration and digital transformation consulting services in South Africa.


Synthesis

Synthesis is a South African software development giant with over 25 years in the industry.

From its founding in 1997, it has developed a wide range of software products for banks and treasuries, including South Africa’s first Internet banking platform.

It started venturing into cloud services in 2014 and became an AWS Partner in 2016.

Since then, it has received several designations and awards, including AWS Consulting Partner of the Year in 2021.

The company offers a free well-architected review that assesses your business’s systems and gives you immediate ways to improve them, valued at $5,000.

Synthesis says it can offer the review at no charge to qualifying customers due to its AWS Advanced Consulting Partner Status.


BCX

Telkom Group’s Business Connexion has offered systems integrator and digital transformation services for over 40 years.

The company has a dedicated cloud consulting division that can help businesses develop the best strategy and equip them with experienced engineers to manage their cloud solutions.

Its consulting team has experience implementing sensible cloud strategies for large enterprises in South Africa.

The company said its team would create application and infrastructure migration plans and ensure they are implemented correctly.

BCX offers its own Tier II and Tier IV data centres but can also provide businesses with services from its global cloud partners AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Image: Feenstra Groupom


BlueSky

BlueSky aims to become Africa’s leading enterprise cloud technology practice by 2025.

It can provide cloud consultancy services for Salesforce, AWS, Tableau, and Alteryx products.

It lays claim to being the largest Salesforce partner in South Africa, with a suite of services available, including Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Community Cloud, and Collaboration Cloud.

AWS services include Cloud Architecture and Migration, AWS Training, Amazon Connect, and more.

BlueSky’s prominent customers include Absa, MultiChoice, Standard Bank, Tencent, Vodacom, and Woolworths.


Obsidian Systems

Obsidian was founded by a group of Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) engineers in 1995 after they began exploring the potential of open-source software like Linux.

The company initially focused on providing Linux servers to academics and researchers before commercialising its proposition and taking it to the broader market.

Consistent growth and a flow of talent saw Obsidian grow from a small office space in Boskruin, Johannesburg, to an entire office park.

Its first commercial Linux install was done for Nando’s in 1997.

Aside from its custom-developed line of “Smarter” products, it also sells AWS and Jira services.


Now read: How to become a SAP developer in South Africa

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