Spiceworks, the marketplace that connects the IT industry, announced a new study,†Public Cloud Trends in 2019 and Beyond, that examines public cloud usage and emerging cloud trends in organizations across†North America†and†Europe. The results show that, on average, businesses run 27 percent of their workloads and applications in public clouds and expect this figure to nearly double to 48 percent within the next one to two years. As more workloads and applications shift to the cloud, 69 percent of businesses believe the flexibility inherent in cloud environments will allow them to more easily adopt emerging technologies such as edge computing, serverless computing, and container technologies.
Spiceworks research shows approximately one-third of businesses plan to adopt edge computing, serverless computing, and container technologies by 2020. Adoption rates are even higher in large enterprises with more than 5,000 employees. For example, by 2020, 65 percent of large enterprises plan to use edge computing and 73 percent plan to use container technologies, up from 32 percent and 39 percent today, respectively.
“Our findings indicate many businesses are eager to capitalize on emerging cloud-centric technologies,” said†Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks. “This interest creates new opportunities for cloud vendors to provide solutions and services that can help organizations reap the benefits of serverless computing, edge computing, and containers.”
Public cloud workloads: Businesses plan to move more sensitive data to public clouds
While there’s little doubt an industry shift to public cloud environments continues, many businesses still choose to run some workloads and applications fully on-premises, particularly those housing sensitive company information such as database servers (59 percent), identity management systems (57 percent), and ERP systems (46 percent). However, among those businesses, approximately 20 percent are considering moving these workloads to public clouds in the next 12 months.
When examining other common workloads and applications, the results show more than half of businesses run their web/ecommerce properties and email workloads fully in public clouds today, while approximately a quarter do the same for their communications tools, mobile services, and CRM systems. Organizations are more likely to take a hybrid approach for their productivity and backup/disaster recovery applications, running some workloads on-premises and some in public clouds.
Public cloud providers: AWS earns top marks for maximum uptime, Microsoft Azure for compatibility, and Google Cloud Platform for manageability
Spiceworks also examined how public cloud providers are perceived among the businesses currently leveraging each brand. The results show Amazon Web Services (AWS) narrowly edges out the competition for maximum uptime, best-in-class data security, and value for money, three of the top five most critical purchase consideration factors according to IT decision makers.
Microsoft Azure took the top spot for compatibility with existing services and tied with AWS for being the most trusted partner. Google Cloud Platform ranked the highest for being simple to manage and an innovative provider. Additionally, more than a third of organizations said they’re open to using smaller, local cloud infrastructure providers.
Public cloud opportunities and hurdles: Many businesses seek more support maintaining data security in the cloud
Overall, the study reveals a positive outlook for providers of public cloud infrastructure, applications, and services with a variety of opportunities for vendors to provide customers with more services and support. For example, many organizations reported they’d like more support from cloud vendors when it comes to maintaining data security (43 percent), migrating workloads to the cloud (39 percent), and complying with data regulations (28 percent).
However, the research indicates there are a few hurdles cloud vendors will need to address, including:
- Retaining customers:†Approximately 80 percent of businesses said they would stop purchasing from their cloud service provider if they experienced unreliable service, substantial price increases, or if there was a security issue with their vendor.
- Offering flexible options:†Nearly a quarter (22 percent) of organizations said they’ve been locked into cloud services they’re not satisfied with.
- Overcoming security concerns:†30 percent of businesses reported facing data security challenges in the cloud. This increases to nearly 50 percent in enterprises with 1,000 or more employees.
“In order to retain business, cloud vendors need to be more proactive about combating the factors that could drive their customers to a competitor,” said Tsai. “For example, public cloud vendors can benefit by being transparent with IT decision makers about safeguards they have in place to protect sensitive data customers are storing or considering storing in public clouds.”†
Methodology
The Spiceworks survey was conducted in†April 2019†and included†452†IT decision makers†in Spiceworks. Respondents represent†organizations†in†North America (74 percent) and†Europe†(26 percent)†across†a variety of company sizes, including†37 percent†from small businesses (1 to 99 employees),†53 percent†from mid-size businesses (100 to 999 employees), and†10 percent†from enterprises (1,000+ employees). Respondents†represent†a variety of industries, including education, healthcare, nonprofits, government, finance, retail, construction, manufacturing, and IT services.
