Nearly 60% of respondents agree that cloud adoption has improved their organization’s agility, but that they could be more agile still. This finding comes from the fourth and final part of the Cloud Impact Study from Aptum, the hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider. The report, titled The Modernization Minefield, examines the deployment of workloads on different infrastructures and the adoption of cloud services at enterprise application level.
The independent research reveals that, despite only 39% of IT professionals being completely satisfied with their rate of cloud transformation, the adoption of practices that lend themselves to cloud native technology and enable agility remains low.
Only 20% of respondents are utilizing DevOps across all applications, and just 17% use container services to develop and deploy all apps. DevOps and container services increase agility by speeding up application deployment times, improving productivity through continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD), enabling easy and frequent patching, and minimizing production costs.
Respondents recognize many of the benefits of DevOps and container services adoption, with common anticipated benefits from further adoption including increased operational efficiency (77%), improved responsiveness (59%) and improved customer experience (58%). So, what is stopping organizations from realizing their cloud native potential?
Effectively refactoring applications requires an up-front commitment of resources and investment, including hardware, software, people, and skillsets like DevOps. The alternative of lifting and shifting an application into a cloud environment can often be a more expensive and less successful endeavour and can deter organizations that already have sunk costs. In fact, findings from part two of the Cloud Impact Study, The Security and Compliance Barricade, found that refactoring legacy applications for cloud infrastructure is a top barrier to cloud transformation (35%), second only to security and compliance (38%).
As a result, for seven out of nine application categories – Human Resources (HR), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), backup, disaster recovery, bespoke applications, development, and operations – on-premises remains the preferred hosting option.
As noted in each of the Cloud Impact Study reports, organizations recognize that they need expert help to plan and execute their transformation strategies. Choosing a Managed Services Provider that understands which areas of a business can be enhanced through cloud services, and which areas should remain on-premises is a crucial step in that process.
The full findings of the final part of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2020/21, The Modernization Minefield can be found here.
Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study was created from the opinions of 400 senior IT professionals in the US, Canada, and UK across industries in financial services, IT, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public and commercial sectors.
The blog post, Navigating the modernization minefield, can be found here: https://aptum.com/blog/navigating-the-modernization-minefield/
For part one of the report, Bridging the Cloud Gap, please visit here.
For part two of the report, The Security and Compliance Barricade, please visit here.
For part three of the report, A Cloudy Forecast, please visit here.
Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study: 86% Have Adopted Hybrid/Multi-Cloud, Yet Only 20% Has Holistic Cloud Strategy
Posted in Commentary with tags Aptum on February 23, 2022 by itnerdAptum, a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider, today released part one of its annual Cloud Impact Study 2022. The report, titled Hybrid: Why and How – Applying lessons from digital transformation, explores the deployment of workloads on different cloud infrastructures and examines the decision-making process behind their placement.
Report Highlights:
The majority of IT decision-makers plan to increase their organization’s use of public cloud (78%) and private cloud (72%) infrastructure over the next 18-24 months.
Eighty-six per cent (86%) of respondents said their organization has adopted a hybrid or multi-cloud approach to cloud deployment.
A vast majority of the respondents also recognized many of the benefits the cloud delivers to their organizations, with the majority agreeing it has delivered on expected efficiencies (90%). Respondents also cited the rate of cloud transformation in their organization has had a positive impact on the following areas:
Indeed, when presented with 12 application categories, respondents said the cloud is the preferred hosting option for all of them, compared to just two out of nine categories in Aptum’s first Cloud Impact Study in 2021. However, despite recognizing the benefits of the cloud, not all workloads are destined for cloud platforms, and some organizations are experiencing a ‘cloud boomerang effect’ among specific applications. Almost half (47%) of respondents anticipate an increase in their organization’s use of traditional (non-cloud-based) infrastructure over the next 18-24 months, up from just under a quarter (23%) in 2021.
The study identifies that one of the causes of the shift back to legacy infrastructure is rooted in lack of strategy. Only 20% of respondents said they have a holistic cloud computing strategy. Additionally, integration of cloud with on-premises systems was cited as the top challenge an organization would face when operating in cloud environments, tied first with data privacy and security challenges.
The primary focus of development teams is on the creation of new versions of applications, meaning limited time can be spent on administrative duties required to refactor workloads for cloud. Due to this, the onus often shifts back to the operations teams to manage administration. Unfortunately, operations teams often lack the necessary skills or resources. If they lack skills, tools, cloud governance policies or operational practices to enforce operational standards, these workloads will often come back to legacy platforms.
The survey results call for organizations to look at ecosystems, with business objectives and optimization in mind, to avoid placing workloads in inappropriate locations. To save time, money and resources and to increase interoperability, businesses should look to hybrid and multi-cloud specialist providers, with the skills and experience to assist in those decisions.
The study canvassed the opinions and approach to cloud technology of 400 senior IT professionals. Respondents were from organizations with 250+ employees in the U.S., Canada and UK. Industries included financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public education and the commercial sector.
To see the full findings from part one of Aptum’s Cloud Impact Study 2022, Hybrid: Why and How – Applying lessons from digital transformation, please download the report here: https://aptum.com/cloud-hub/2022-cis-part-1/
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