Hosting Journalist already knew, but a new study by Rackspace Hosting now confirms our thoughts. The majority (60 percent) of UK and US enterprise IT decision-makers see hybrid cloud as the culmination of their cloud journey, rather than a stepping stone to using the public cloud alone for all their cloud needs.
While the public cloud remains important to IT decision-makers at UK and US enterprises involved in the research, the limitations of using this type of platform as a one-size-fits-all solution are becoming more apparent. According to the Rackspace study, conducted by independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne, these limitations are leading many respondents to turn to a hybrid cloud infrastructure (i.e. public cloud, private cloud and dedicated servers working together in any combination) for certain applications or workloads.
Better Security, More Control…
Better security (52 percent), more control (42 percent), and better performance or reliability (37 percent), are the top reasons that respondents gave for why their organization is using hybrid cloud instead of a public cloud only approach for certain applications or workloads.
The Rackspace study investigated the use of different types of clouds – public, private and hybrid – along with dedicated servers by UK and US enterprises. The study also found that 60 percent of respondents have already moved or are considering moving certain applications or workloads either partially (41 percent) or completely (19 percent) off the public cloud because of its limitations or the potential benefits of other platforms, such as a hybrid cloud.
“The findings of the study indicate that the hybrid cloud is the next cloud for many organizations,” says John Engates, CTO of Rackspace. “They may have started with a public cloud-only architecture, but have come to realize the limitations of this approach as they’ve continued on their cloud journey. They turn to the hybrid cloud because it can combine the best of public cloud, private cloud and dedicated servers, delivering a common architecture that can be tailored to create the best fit for their specific needs. For example, instead of trying to run a big database in the public cloud on its own, which can be very problematic, businesses can leverage the hybrid cloud to run that database much more efficiently on a dedicated server that can burst into the public cloud when needed.”
Rackspace commissioned independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne to undertake the research upon which this report is based. 400 interviews were carried out during June 2013 with IT decision-makers in organizations with more than 1000 employees. Interviews were performed in both the UK and USA across both private and public sectors.
