The majority of firms (93 percent) are adopting a mix of cloud and on-premises solutions or migrating totally to the cloud within five years, according to a hybrid cloud adoption study of over 900 IT experts largely headquartered in North America and Europe. The survey conducted by Hornetsecurity further reveals that in five years, half of the respondents (51 percent) expect to be ‘mostly in the cloud,’ with one or two workloads remaining on-premises.
28 percent of the survey’s respondents said they will remain ‘mostly on premises’, with a workload or two in the cloud.
While 29 percent of respondents stated hybrid cloud solutions are a stepping stone to a complete cloud environment, 67 percent said hybrid is the end destination for their infrastructure owing to workloads that must remain on premises. The rest of them insist they’re sticking to their guns. Many respondents cited data ownership, security, and cost concerns with cloud technology as reasons for staying on premise.
Trust Difficulties with Public Cloud
The hybrid cloud adoption study also discovered that firms of all sizes had trust difficulties with the public cloud, with 31-36 percent of all surveyed company size groups expressing worries.
The poll further reveals that as users get more expertise with the public cloud, their skepticism grows. Respondents with over 20 years of expertise (34 percent) were more likely than those with 1-5 years of experience (24 percent) to voice worries about the trustworthiness of cloud platforms. ‘Legacy systems or software,’ according to half of all respondents, is another important reason why certain workloads must remain on premises, while ‘application compatibility,’ according to four out of ten organizations, is an obstacle to cloud migration.
Industry regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CMMC, among others, were also highlighted by 29 percent of respondents as a barrier to cloud adoption.
Multiple Challenges Blocking Cloud Adoption
Companies indicate they are delaying complete cloud migration owing to a lack of ‘technical knowhow or certified people’ (48 percent), challenges with ‘implementation of best practices inside the organization’ (33 percent), connectivity concerns (33 percent), and ‘secured access’ (29 percent).
‘Print & Imaging Services’ was the most prevalent task stopping IT teams from moving all services to the cloud (55 percent). Databases, file storage, and application services are also listed by 50 percent, 45 percent, and 43 percent of respondents, respectively, as reasons for keeping partially on premise.
According to Hornetsecurity’s report, hybrid cloud solutions still face a number of issues. ‘Monitoring and security’ are at the top of the list, with half of those polled expressing anxiety in this area. ‘Networking and connection’ form another issue that over half of all respondents are concerned about (48 percent). Finally, 35 percent, 35 percent, and 33 percent of respondents, respectively, are concerned about training and certification, manageability and tooling, and resiliency and data recovery.
In five years, 47 percent of respondents who work in internal IT teams expect their workloads to be ‘primarily in the cloud,’ compared to 52 percent of respondents whose organization employs MSP services and 54 percent of respondents who work for MSPs. Internal IT departments, like those who use MSP services, have a low level of trust in cloud services, with 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively.
As a Microsoft 365 security and backup solution supplier, Hornetsecurity is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Montreal, Canada. Hornetsecurity’s international distribution network allows it to operate in more than 30 countries across the world.
