The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lockdowns around the globe. While many jobs were able to either temporarily or permanently operate in a remote capacity, a lot of manufacturing and factory positions did not have that capability. When those factories shut down for weeks or months at a time, essential parts and equipment were not rolling off of assembly lines and shipped out to customers worldwide. This marked the start of supply chain issues that have yet to be resolved more than two-and-a-half years later.

While supply chain issues have affected the availability of many goods from your local retail outlets, they have also resulted in a number of challenges for major technology vendors. Cisco, Microsoft, and Dell Technologies (and many others) have all been dealing with chip shortages and other things that create weeks- or months-long delays for customers. A vast majority of physical, on-premises IT solutions are manufactured and shipped from China, which continues to take extraordinary precautions in the pandemic by instituting sporadic lockdowns when virus cases rise above certain thresholds. Exceptionally busy shipping routes and a lack of available transportation have also contributed to delays, along with the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. These are all puzzle pieces the world is frantically trying to put back together so life and business can largely return to normal.

One perhaps unintended consequence of the IT equipment supply chain delays is an acceleration of cloud adoption and migration by many organizations. Unlike physical equipment, cloud solutions can be purchased and deployed into an environment in a matter of hours or days, depending on size and scope requirements. That ease and scalability have been selling points for cloud solutions since they first became available, however now they have the added benefit of enabling businesses to avoid costly or strategic delays involved with implementation. Rather than wait months for a critical part to arrive, organizations are simply shifting that piece of their environment into the cloud so it can get deployed and become operational according to their own timeline. An increase in cloud adoption and usage has always been expected, but projections suggested it would take much longer to reach its current level. The primary motivating factor appears to be directly related to supply chain delays.

Sentinel has certainly noticed the sharp uptick in cloud adoption among our customers. We are proud to offer both AWS and Azure cloud solutions and services to help elevate your business with innovative features and robust security to keep critical pieces of your environment safe. Sentinel CloudSelect® includes the unique capabilities that we call Select, Connect, and Protect. You can Select the cloud solution you would like to deploy, choose how it Connects to your environment, then add security features from Fortis by Sentinel to Protect it against attackers. There are a wealth of customizable combinations ready to handle the unique requirements of your organization. Please contact us if you would like to learn more about our cloud offerings.

CRN also recently published a news story on how supply chain issues are driving cloud adoption, which you can read at this link if interested.