Over half of CIOs and IT managers across the globe have identified hybrid cloud as the most common digital transformation adoption.
This is according to NetApp's industry cloud adoption research, conducted by Opinion Matters, which found over half of all respondents indicate they are using a combination of private and public cloud. Only 3% of all respondents claim they are not using any cloud services or are only planning to use them. These 'cloud sceptics' are not linked to a specific company size, industry vertical, or cloud strategy, adds the report.
The research is based on responses of 750 CIOs and IT managers in France, Germany and the UK, which gauged attitudes towards cloud services, data needs and the level of digital transformation awareness and preparedness. More than half (56%) of the survey base also named security as a primary reason for adopting cloud, showing that trust in cloud providers continues to advance. Countries also put flexibility (55%) and cost savings (54%) high on the list.
"IT leaders look to the cloud to boost innovation. We believe that they should focus on three things to be successful, and these are choice, control and agility," said Martin Warren, Cloud Solutions marketing manager, EMEA, at NetApp.
The survey further found most respondents prefer the hybrid cloud, but they rely on different types of partners: Local service providers are the preferred hybrid cloud partner - as stated by a combined 26% of base respondents. Other options like hyperscalers (18%) and larger cloud service providers or global system integrators (17%) were found to be less popular.
Sekete Patrick Maphopha, SE manager for Africa and Technology Evangelist at NetApp, says enterprises need to be able to choose which workloads belong in the cloud and choose the best partners to move them across a hybrid landscape. "Organisations need to have visibility into cost, performance and data placement to make informed business and regulatory decisions across the full data lifecycle. And they want to harness every advantage of cloud economics - from new ideas to concepts to production. We have strong solutions and strategies to deliver all of this."
Erik Zandboer, advisory specialist EMEA at Dell EMC, says cloud solutions within SA organisations are quickly becoming the baseline for current and future technology investment.
"The value of technology for business has found common ground with an understanding of the operational benefits cloud offers. Professionals grasp the value contributed to their own vision. This has long been a promise of cloud, now coming to fruition in the business world. We see companies that do development in their private data centres, and when they need to scale it out, they go to a public provider. We also see other companies do the exact opposite: developing in Amazon or similar, because it is so easy and flexible, then running their production on private cloud because most of the time it's cheaper," he explains.
According to IDC's Worldwide Black Book, a quarterly review of ICT spending in 89 countries, global information and communications technology (ICT) spending will increase by 3% in 2017, to reach $3.5 trillion. The report found cloud will continue to drive much of the ICT spending, as more businesses move to adopt cloud services.
"The cloud has come to dominate the ICT market outlook in many ways," says Stephen Minton, program vice president in IDC' Customer Insights and Analysis group. "It drives capital spending cycles for hardware manufacturers and represents an increasing proportion of the customer base for server and storage vendors. From a software standpoint, software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service already account for almost 20% of all software spending and rising, while cloud adoption is also driving increasing usage of telecom services and investment in network equipment. On the other hand, the cloud also continues to cannibalise from legacy 2nd Platform revenue streams, including traditional outsourcing services."
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