Cloud rapidly climbing Vertiv’s most critical industries list

Vertiv (formerly Emerson Network Power) has ranked the most critical industries in the world with utilities, mass transit and telecommunications taking out the top three spots respectively.

However, cloud and colocation are growing rapidly in fifth spot and rising.

The panel set criteria looked into the range of potential impacts from the loss of availability of critical systems and then weighted them on based on the severity of the impact.

"If there is a common theme at the top of this list, it is the interconnectedness of these industries," says Jack Pouchet, vice president, market development, Vertiv.

"These sectors are important to the foundation of today's society, and downtime in any of these areas can reverberate across industries and around the globe. This will only continue as our world becomes more mobile and more connected and as the Internet of Things expands.

It's no real surprise that utilities topped the list, as the segment includes electricity, gas and clean water, which are all fundamental needs needs in a developed society and underpin most other industries and services.

"I'm not surprised to see utilities at the top of the list," says Robert Linsdell, managing director for Vertiv in Australia and New Zealand.

"Power generation and distribution underpin most industries. Everything depends upon the utility, and when the supply of any utility goes down just about every industry is affected.

In terms of the impact from unplanned downtime of these critical industries, financial services took the number one spot, with eCommerce in second and cloud and colocation in third.

Cloud and colocation were noted as being extremely important due to the increased dependence on these platforms across multiple businesses.

The panel also identified cloud and colocation as one of several rapidly emerging industries that are becoming increasingly critical.

"Cloud and colocation growth continues to accelerate," says panellist Tony Gaunt, senior director for colocation, cloud and banking, financial services and insurance for Vertiv in Asia.

"We are right at the beginning of the up curve for core industries' cloud adoption, and it's likely that future critical services—the IoT networks that support smart cities and manufacturing, for example—will develop in the cloud.