In 2018, nearly 40% of enterprise IT decision-makers identified public cloud as their top priority. Yet, the perception persists that public cloud adoption among enterprises is still not happening as quickly as many experts have anticipated, particularly for mission-critical applications. Research is showing that 2019 could very well shape up to be a turning point for enterprises in accelerating the migration of mission-critical workloads to public cloud. There are three critical reasons driving this potential shift:
- Business leaders are demanding public cloud, looking to ensure that their organizations are ahead of the curve on digital transformation.
- IT decision-makers are prioritizing public cloud as they look to leverage cloud elasticity, modernize in-house computer systems, and empower DevOps.
- Cloud providers are focusing attention on enterprise IT, removing stumbling blocks that may have given IT decision-makers pause to fully embrace public cloud in the past.
Business leaders are demanding public cloud
Digital transformation is a top investment priority for enterprises, with more than 80% undergoing initiatives to rationalize and modernize their infrastructure. Not only is public cloud an enabler for digital transformation, many enterprises are adopting a “cloud first” approach when architecting or updating enterprise applications. Public cloud enables organizations to accelerate digital transformation with faster access to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, IOT, and cloud-native application development platforms. With the right public cloud platform, organizations can be more cost-efficient, strategic and agile, without sacrificing enterprise requirements for availability, reliability, security, disaster recovery or regulatory compliance. In fact, with the right set of solutions, each of those areas can be enhanced.
IT decision-makers are prioritizing public cloud.
Throughout 2018, the priorities of buyers have reflected a heavy emphasis on cloud features and benefits. Top priorities are:
- Leverage cloud elasticity: Cited by 45% of pre-purchase decision-makers, focused on scaling up and down for cost and competitiveness
- Replace in-house computing systems: 23%
- Enable DevOps deployment: 20%
- Enable rapid deployment of infrastructure resources: 18%
While these have been the top priorities for 2018, it is important to note that each is trending upward for 2019. So, while public cloud has been a top priority for IT in 2018, it will become an even higher priority in 2019.
Cloud providers are focusing critical attention on enterprise IT
Enterprise IT decision-makers are making public cloud an even higher priority in 2019 because they are more confident in cloud as a platform than ever before. This is largely because they can now rely on providers that have a rich history in serving the unique needs of enterprise businesses in terms of reliability, availability, performance and security. In addition, they can leverage new functionality designed to meet enterprise business requirements.
Conclusion
For many enterprises, the journey to the cloud has been focused primarily on new cloud-native applications. They haven’t been ready to put their most mission-critical applications into public cloud. The thinking has been to wait and move these apps to the cloud in the future, when the cloud is enterprise-ready. Guess what? The cloud is enterprise-ready, if you choose the right platform.
