A crisis always triggers a shift in strategy. A full-scale invasion is a crisis just like that, because of which business and government institutions had to change their approaches. And if in 2022 everyone managed mostly by trial and error, 2023 has already made it possible for some strategies to become the norm on the state level. In particular, the Cloud First strategy. It was the one to instill digitalization.

Many had to adapt, completely change their vision, and this would not have been possible without the external help of experienced cloud operators. And GigaCloud joined this process in all sectors of the Ukrainian economy. In 2023, for the first time, the government overtook the private sector in the pace of digitization, and for the first time we became the largest public sector partner in the implementation of digital transformation with the help of cloud technologies. At the same time, we continue to intensify partnerships with the commercial sector and, for instance, every third Ukrainian bank uses our clouds. In general, GigaCloud indirectly serves more than 20 million Ukrainians every day.

To do this, we invested in infrastructure, engaged partners, introduced new services for the comfort and security of our customers, and implemented several socially important projects — all to ensure the maximum level of freedom for users of our services.

There will be even more tasks ahead. As Volodymyr Bielov, GigaCloud Ukraine CEO notes, “much will depend on the development of the situation at the frontline and the support our partners could provide to the country. But we believe that the cloud market will keep on growing at an annual rate of 35%.”

Find it all out in more detail below, in an already traditional annual report.

GigaCloud is twice as often selected for large business projects

Our predictions about the development of the market last year came true: customers have more widely welcomed the idea of using the cloud. Throughout the year, 2.5 times more Ukrainian companies migrated to the cloud than in 2021, the pre-war year. Also, the market chooses a cloud partner more carefully compared to 2022, because there is more time to contemplate further steps.

The demand for services in the Enterprise segment has grown significantly: during the full-scale invasion, large businesses are twice as likely to pick GigaCloud for their projects. Especially in 2023, the demand for building security solutions increased: disaster recovery (DRaaS) — by 30%, and backup services (BaaS) — by 54%. It happens for the reason that large companies can lose tens of thousands of dollars even in a single hour’s downtime. So, having already faced crisis situations in 2022, they seek to ensure their reliability for the future.

Among medium-sized businesses, on the contrary, the pace of building backup solutions has decreased. We began to hear more statements like “we will wait and see”, so we can assume that business has become less alarmed. But at the same time, this segment shows a stable increase in projects using the public cloud — in 2023, we recorded a 20% increase in their number.

Managed Private Clouds are booming. Financial sector is rapidly going digital

Through the year, we built a third less new Managed Private Clouds than last year. But at the same time, the volumes of infrastructure have significantly expanded. At the same time, 70% of companies using a Managed Private Cloud amplified their capacity in 2023. The main reason for this was the active introduction of a number of new services among businesses and government institutions.

This is another wartime trend. Thanks to the introduction of new services, businesses achieve greater sustainability and become less dependent on the human factor. The financial sector and the medical industry follow this trend the most. Every third Ukrainian bank, as well as hundreds of medical institutions and pharmacies, use our clouds to build the main or backup IT infrastructure.

The public sector is being transformed thanks to the cloud

Introduced before the Big War, the government's Cloud First strategy became a driving factor for digital transformation. In 2023, we have already witnessed its results.

This year, for the first time, the public sector overtook the private sector in terms of digitalization pace. Of course, this is primarily due to the weak digitalization before that, and in general numbers, private business is far ahead. But the dynamics are very positive.

For the second year in a row, the number of customers from the government sector choosing GigaCloud has increased by 55%. Taking into account the data of the Prozorro electronic public procurement system, in 2023 we became the largest partner of the public sector in digital transformation using cloud technologies for the first time — both in terms of the number of projects and the capacity of implemented solutions. Like private business, the state is rapidly scaling up and entrusting the most critical services to the cloud. And if the state budget is steady, the pace of digitalization will be preserved.

10,000 virtual machines and 83 new data centers. How the company's infrastructure grows

• Now, our hardware and software complex supports the operation of 10,000 virtual machines, which is 42.86% more than before the war.
• This year we invested $2,480,000 in new gear.
• We have signed agreements with several data center networks. This allows us to place the IT infrastructure of customers in any part of Europe (more than 80 data centers).
• The total amount of data stored in the GigaCloud cloud and the amount of RAM involved increased by almost 1.5 times.

We help clients tackle staff shortages and impeccably select the service

A shortage of qualified IT experts is becoming a more noticeable issue for business. As a cloud provider, we respond to this demand and provide assistance in solving issues at the levels from infrastructure to applications. More than 100 customers are using GigaCloud Admin today. These are services that go beyond the standard tasks of the technical support service — installation and configuration of cloud infrastructure, software, networks, databases, etc.

95% of new customers become our clients after testing the service. It indicates that we have the most highly efficient system of determining the right service and onboarding clients by presale managers with experience in hundreds of cases.

By phone, on the road, without internet. Technical support has become more comprehensive

In 2023, we introduced another type of client verification — via SMS. Now you can solve problems by phone if the client is on the road, without internet, etc.

The average time for the first response to a client's request is 4.5 minutes. For 98% of customers, the waiting time for the first response is less than 15 minutes. The request is usually completed in 3 hours, but depending on the complexity of the task, the execution time takes from 1 to 72 hours.

In their responses to a survey on the level of satisfaction with GigaCloud's technical support in 2023, clients bring up the company's high level of empathy, level of competence, response speed during the first and subsequent contact.

Take it and use it: 68 examples of business digitalization on an interactive map

In wartime, we do not publish the names of large projects for security reasons. But they are steadily appearing, as the infrastructure reinforcement is the key to stable operation of business and state organizations.

To expand the best practices of digitalization, we show a number of use cases (including those we provided in 2023) on an interactive map. We created it so that any Ukrainian business or technical specialist could find a reference solution for their current tasks.

The digitalization map of Ukrainian companies is constantly updated in the link — https://gigacloud.ua/success-story

AI comes by default. The company's product policy in 2023

We've refined our public and managed private clouds, and now the customer has the ability to quickly add advanced network stack functionality, build containers, or even see what GigaCloud engineers are doing during maintenance work.

Considerable attention was paid on our part to the development of our VMware-based public cloud. We implemented Aria Operations in all public cloud clusters to monitor the proper operation, resource utilization and infrastructure performance. Also, in all clusters, we expanded the functionality to improve network security — micro-segmentation based on VMware NSX. The solution allows you to divide the network into small segments and create local traffic isolation rules between them. One of our Availability Zones already has container clusters in the VMware public cloud. They are built on VMware Tanzu and will help customers host their microservices and plan peak loads for their infrastructure. Soon, the service will be available in all clusters.

Our team is currently developing a new cloud enabling customers to order not only virtual resources, but entire hosts — its release is scheduled for the first quarter of 2024.
For two years now, our customers have been using GPU Cloud — VMware's public cloud with video cards. Previously, the service was most actively used to solve problems of 3D modelling, design, and rendering. With the development of AI among Ukrainian businesses and high user demand, we have added a solution on that account — powerful graphics processors specifically for AI-based tasks.

This year, we will focus on implementing even more clouds for AI-powered projects. In the near future, clouds with GPUs will become a customary business product, in line with CPUs or RAM. Artificial intelligence is not witchcraft, and if you still have doubts, we will help you test and implement these solutions in your business.

The largest partner network among Ukrainian cloud providers

Together with our partners, we can figure out any issue. Seven years ago, it all started with a sum under UAH 36K — which was exactly the amount of affiliate sales based on the results of the first year of the affiliate program. This year, the total cost of projects implemented thanks to partner sales amounted to UAH 2,400,000.

More than 100 new partners have joined our partner network. They include 50 Ukrainian software development companies that help businesses stop using russian software. And this is the largest partner network among cloud providers in Ukraine.

Dozens of charity projects in the cloud and bionic prostheses for the military. The company’s social policy

We provide everything necessary for the company's employees who defend Ukraine in the ranks of the Territorial Defense Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine — this is our duty as a Ukrainian employer.

As part of the corporate support program, we provide free cloud infrastructure for dozens of military projects. Now more than ever, it is important to take care of the Ukrainian community, to join initiatives that cannot always be disclosed for security reasons. We also financially support social initiatives aimed at ensuring fundraising, volunteer assistance, treatment and psychological rehabilitation from the war outcomes.

Another line of work we do is financing the Esper Hand bionic prostheses for soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who lost their limbs in the combat. We don't just finance the production of personal prostheses, we also seek to create an inclusive workspace for people coming back from the frontline. When the war is over, about a million veterans will need reintegration, comfortable working conditions, additional training — and this should be taken care of now.