93% of IT Industry to Adopt Cloud Tech Within 5 Years, Survey Finds

The survey, conducted by Hornetsecurity, reveals that hybrid cloud solutions are the long-term target for 2 in 3 companies.

A hybrid cloud adoption survey of 900+ IT professionals primarily based in North America and Europe found that the majority of businesses (93%) are adopting a hybrid of cloud and on-premise solutions or migrating fully to the cloud within 5 years. Half of respondents (51%) reported that they will be ‘mostly in the cloud’ in 5 years, with one or two workloads remaining on premise. 28% of respondents said they will remain ‘mostly on premise’, with a workload or two in the cloud.

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67% of IT professionals see a hybrid cloud solution as a permanent destination
While 29% of respondents said they are using hybrid cloud solutions as a steppingstone to a full cloud environment, 67% of respondents see hybrid as a final destination for their infrastructure due to workloads that must remain on premise. The rest say they are remaining 100% on premise. When asked why companies were remaining on premise, many respondents cited data control, security, and cost concerns with cloud technology.

34% of companies cite trust issues with cloud as reason for workloads remaining on premise

The hybrid cloud adoption survey also found that trust issues with the public cloud are present within companies of all sizes, with 31-36% of all surveyed company size categories reporting concerns.

The survey also shows that with experience comes more distrust in the public cloud. Respondents with 20+ years of experience were more likely to express concerns with the trustworthiness of cloud platforms (34%) than those with 1-5 years of experience (24%). Half of all respondents mentioned ‘legacy systems or software’ as another major reason certain workloads must remain on premise, while ‘application compatibility’ was reported as a roadblock to cloud migration for 4 in 10 companies.

Industry regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA and CMMC among others were also cited as an obstacle for cloud adoption by 29% of respondents.

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Multiple challenges blocking cloud adoption

Companies say they are holding back from full cloud migration due to a lack of ‘technical knowhow or certified staff’ (48%), difficulties with ‘application of best practices within the company’ (33%), issues with connectivity (33%), and ‘secured access’ (29%).

The most common workload preventing IT departments from lifting all services to the cloud was ‘Print & Imaging Services’ (55%). Databases, file storage and application services are also cited as reasons for remaining partially on premise with 50%, 45%, and 43% of respondents indicating such respectively.

Hornetsecurity’s survey reveals that hybrid cloud solutions still present several challenges. Chief among them is ‘monitoring and security’, with half of respondents expressing concerns in this area. ‘Networking and connectivity’ is another concern shared by nearly half of all respondents (48%). Finally, ‘training and certification’, ‘manageability and tooling’, and ‘resiliency and data recovery’ also factor into the concerns shared by 35%, 35%, and 33% of respondents respectively.

Companies using MSP services more likely to use cloud solutions vs on premise

47% of respondents who form part of internal IT teams reported that they see their workloads ‘mostly in the cloud’ in 5 years, versus 52% of respondents whose company uses MSP services, and 54% of respondents that work at MSPs. Internal IT departments report a lack of trust in cloud services at almost the same rate as those using MSP services, with 34% and 33% respectively.

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