Survey Finds 70% of Companies Have Accelerated Cloud Migration in Last Year
Also, 60% of respondents said cloud capabilities increased or sustained revenue in the last 12 months.
April 21, 2022
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The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to cloud migration. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) say their organization is defaulting to cloud-based services when upgrading or buying new technical capabilities.
As part of a “cloud-first” strategy, one-third (32%) are rebuilding or refactoring most of their applications for the cloud. Another third (33%) are extending their on-premises environment by migrating core applications with a hybrid cloud approach. Roughly one-quarter (23%) are taking a more stair-step approach of rebuilding or refactoring a few targeted applications to be hosted with a single cloud services provider. Only 6% have yet to make plans on a modernization strategy, while the remaining 6% have no cloud migration plans.
If organizations have a sizeable budget, they’re likely reworking most of their applications for the cloud. This is the case for ITDMs with cloud budgets topping $10 million, such as health care organizations. However, ITDMs with $50,000 or less for cloud budgets are most likely to have no cloud migration plans.
Migration plans also differ depending on how much of an organization’s IT environment is currently in the cloud. Unsurprisingly, those that are primarily or entirely in the cloud plan to stay on their cloud-first path. Organizations will likely adopt a hybrid approach if they have migrated just a few key applications. Those whose environment is entirely on-premises are most likely to ease into the cloud by hosting a few targeted applications on a single cloud services provider.
On average, 63% of companies’ public cloud deployments currently leverage one single cloud provider. Still, only 16% of companies rely on a single provider for all their public cloud deployments while 74% use more than one public cloud provider. Enterprises (1,000 plus employees) have made more progress on their hybrid and multicloud plans. In addition, SMBs are twice as likely (23%) as enterprises (11%) to have no plans for either.
Across industries, health care and technology are most likely to be in the process of deploying multicloud, while technology is mostly likely to already have a fully deployed a multicloud architecture. Education, services, and government/nonprofit organizations are most likely to say they have no plans for hybrid or multicloud architecture.
Virtually all ITDMs (96%) have experienced significant challenges to implementing their cloud strategy. One major issue is cost control. Another is security management. In addition, companies are wrestling with a skills gap that goes beyond the lack of cloud security skills.
Successful deployment is not trouble-free, either. Most (79%) of ITDMs report experiencing at least one significant downside to their multicloud migration. The most common complaint is increased complexity (48%), followed by increased costs due to cloud management and security challenges (36%), and increased costs of training and hiring (34%). Larger companies, and companies with larger cloud budgets, are more likely to experience greater downsides. Similarly, companies with some but not most of their infrastructure in the cloud report more downsides than companies with most or all their infrastructure in the cloud.
Overall, the larger a company’s cloud budget or the more of its IT infrastructure is already in the cloud, the more likely it is to have any given application or workload in the cloud or be in the process of migrating it. This makes sense given that a larger cloud budget and cloud presence indicate a greater commitment to cloud computing, the report said. However, organizations that are still mostly on-premises but have moved some infrastructure to the cloud are notably more likely to be planning to migrate any given application or workload than organizations that are either entirely on-premises or mostly in the cloud. This is likely the case because moving a few things to the cloud creates greater pressure to move more.
Overall, 44% of organizations that use multiple cloud providers do not consider one of them a strategic partner, while 40% do. However, enterprises and companies with cloud budgets of more than $10 million are significantly more likely to say that one of their providers is a strategic partner, as are ITDMs in high tech and retail.
By contrast, those in health care and services are more likely to say they don’t have a strategic partnership with any of their cloud providers. Nonetheless, the majority of ITDMs also say that system integrators (43%), managed service providers (40%), and consulting firms (32%) – that is, individuals and groups with direct experience integrating and managing cloud systems – are likely to influence their organization’s cloud purchase decisions. This increases for enterprise organizations, with 48% saying that systems integrators influence cloud purchase decisions, followed by managed service providers (43%) and consulting firms (39%). What they want most from vendors is ongoing help managing their cloud infrastructure as a coherent, cohesive, affordable whole.
Overall, 44% of organizations that use multiple cloud providers do not consider one of them a strategic partner, while 40% do. However, enterprises and companies with cloud budgets of more than $10 million are significantly more likely to say that one of their providers is a strategic partner, as are ITDMs in high tech and retail.
By contrast, those in health care and services are more likely to say they don’t have a strategic partnership with any of their cloud providers. Nonetheless, the majority of ITDMs also say that system integrators (43%), managed service providers (40%), and consulting firms (32%) – that is, individuals and groups with direct experience integrating and managing cloud systems – are likely to influence their organization’s cloud purchase decisions. This increases for enterprise organizations, with 48% saying that systems integrators influence cloud purchase decisions, followed by managed service providers (43%) and consulting firms (39%). What they want most from vendors is ongoing help managing their cloud infrastructure as a coherent, cohesive, affordable whole.
It’s no mystery that the pandemic has caused a shift to remote work, spurring the evolution of cloud migration and a cloud-first IT infrastructure era. Almost 70% of companies have advanced their cloud migration over the past 12 months.
Experts expect that the percentage of companies with most or all IT infrastructure in the cloud will jump from 41% to 63% in the next 18 months. In addition, 60% agree that cloud capabilities helped them achieve increased and sustainable revenue in the last year. Consequently, organizations plan to allocate an average 32% of their IT budgets to cloud strategy.
These statistics come from the 2022 Cloud Computing Survey from Foundry (formerly IDG Communications). See the slideshow above for snippets from the report. It represents the practices and opinions of 850 IT decision-makers (ITDMs) who are instrumental in the purchase process for cloud computing and whose organization has, or plans to have, at least one application or a portion of their infrastructure in the cloud.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Claudia Adrien or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
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