Multi-cloud arises from changing cloud priorities: Performance and innovation rise above cost considerations when choosing a cloud strategy.
Nowadays, most enterprises utilise cloud technology within their business in some form, whether it’s private, public or hybrid. With cloud adoption now spanning across nearly every industry, even public sector and healthcare organisations are turning to multi-cloud services in their quest for digitalisation.
So, why are enterprises turning to multi-cloud for their workloads? And, how do they plan to use cloud services in the future, now they’ve largely invested into them?
Recently, C8 hosted a roundtable centred around new research from our client Virtustream, the enterprise-class cloud company and a Dell Technologies business. Coming together to discuss Virtustream’s study titled, “Multi-cloud Arises From Changing Cloud Priorities”, we had leading journalists attend from a range of influential publications including Enterprise Times, Government Computing, Channelnomics and analysts from Bloor Research and EuroLan.
The research, commissioned with Forrester Consulting, was based on a worldwide survey of 727 IT decision makers, from enterprises with over 1,000 employees. They explored how shifting business priorities are driving enterprises to adopt multi-cloud strategies, examining the current state of cloud strategy and the changing needs of IT decision-makers for multi-use cloud platforms.
So, let’s dig deeper into the core findings:
Changing business priorities
Most enterprises today are adopting multi-cloud strategies to optimise performance and meet shifting business objectives, where no single cloud service can meet all businesses workload requirements. Enterprises are leveraging multiple public and private clouds for different application workloads and cite performance as the top consideration, rather than compliance and security.
According to the research, 86% of respondents describe their current cloud strategy as multi-cloud, with performance and innovation overtaking cost savings as the top measures of success. Findings show, 60% of enterprises are now moving or have already moved mission-critical applications (that’s highly important data) to the public cloud.
As enterprises increasingly focus on migrating mission-critical applications to the cloud, investments in cloud technology and resources are clearly on the up, with almost half of enterprises reporting at least $50 million in cloud spending each year.
Re-evaluating cloud strategies
The findings show nearly three in four enterprises plan to re-think their cloud strategy within the next two years, or create a brand new one. When asked about their organisation’s business objectives for cloud this year, 42% of respondents reported operational efficiency as their number one priority, followed closely by innovation and revenue growth.
IT leaders surveyed show a diverse set of use cases for multi-cloud platforms, and believe that a multi-cloud approach improves IT infrastructure management and flexibility, better IT cost management overall, and improved security and compliance.
During this next wave of cloud deployments, as the study highlights, many organisations have a more thorough, complete understanding of what cloud platforms offer. The need to improve operational efficiencies, due to changing business priorities, is driving adoption. Opting for multi-cloud platforms can help deliver those efficiencies, but it also pushes IT decision makers to think strategically about why they’re using cloud services and what they’re using them for.
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