New research has found that security is the most significant concern for IT professionals considering, or are already using, multi-cloud strategies – topping the list of worries amongst both US and UK respondents.
Cloudy Ensono released new research into the wide array of challenges facing US and UK IT leaders’ multi-cloud strategy. After security, UK IT leaders’ top fears for their multi-cloud strategy were governance and cost optimisation.
US respondents were more worried about cost optimisation and maintaining a positive end-user experience next on the list.
The report said that managing these challenges can be a complicated process for many businesses. Forty-three percent of surveyed IT leaders have turned to a Managed Service Provider (MSP) to overcome issues with their multi-cloud strategy.
Of those working with MSPs, 46 percent were attracted by the prospect of faster time to adoption, and 44 percent by the ability to tap into skills that were unavailable or lacking internally.
The issue of skills is a complex challenge for an organisation looking to make the most of new and emerging technology. Ensono’s research highlighted that Amazon Web Services (55 percent) and Microsoft Azure (54 percent) were the most common areas of public cloud expertise to have internally in a business.
There was a slight divergence in public cloud skills and capabilities amongst the respondents, with US businesses best placed internally to work with AWS, compared to UK firms where Microsoft Azure edges ahead.
COVID-19 added new urgency to the digital transformation agenda. Around two-thirds of IT leaders (67 percent) said that COVID-19 either did not disrupt or had accelerated their plans to move to a multi-cloud environment.
Economic uncertainty has made this a difficult road for some businesses. Nearly 19 percent of respondents said that COVID-19 had slowed their adoption of multi-cloud as priorities changed and investment had to be redirected to other areas.
Ensono Chief Strategy Officer Brian Klingbeil said that firms need to deliver a cloud strategy that is right for them with the surge in interest in cloud technology. Complex deployments like multi-cloud present a wide array of potential challenges.
“Before a migration, businesses need to undertake a thorough audit of their existing applications and put together a comprehensive roadmap to the cloud. This planning will ensure that fundamentals like security, user experience and cost optimisation do not fall by the wayside in the journey to the cloud”, Klingbeil said.
“COVID-19 has accelerated the need for innovation in IT, and using the public cloud is an effective way to achieve this goal. With cloud talent and skills at a premium, working with a Managed Service Provider is a great way to access this expertise and build a cloud strategy fit for the post-pandemic world.”
Once these challenges are overcome, multi-cloud offers a host of possibilities. Of those businesses that have adopted multiple public clouds, over half (53 percent) said they did so to take advantage of different cloud providers’ specialties. Other respondents painted the decision as a deliberate choice based on cost controls (23 percent) or departmental differences (22 pe cent).
Containers remain an essential tool for companies looking to deploy applications to multiple public clouds. Nearly a quarter of respondents said they have already adopted a container-based strategy, and a further 47 percent of IT leaders would like to do this in the future.
Some in the industry view distributed cloud as the future. Nearly half of respondents believe that distributed cloud could be the solution to network related issues and outages. Another 42 percent believe that it could eliminate latency issues, and 36 percent think that it can lead to an increase in the availability of locations where cloud services can be hosted or consumed.
Klingbeil said: “Multi-cloud is an attractive option for businesses looking for a flexible, resilient cloud strategy. It offers firms a route to the best of both worlds: receiving all the benefits of different cloud providers and protecting the business against vendor lock-in. When set up in multi-cloud, containers are ideal for innovating in the cloud – quickly port and scale applications to deliver for the business. And for businesses seeking even more location flexibility for their public cloud infrastructure, the distributed cloud may well be the future.”
