Multi-cloud strategies set to dominate?

Ensono has released the findings of its research report, “A Snapshot of the Cloud in 2021.” Ensono surveyed 500 full-time professionals across the U.S. and U.K. with cloud procurement decision-making power in a variety of industries including: healthcare, financial services/insurance, retail, public sector, manufacturing, professional services and utilities. The report revealed that multi-cloud strategies are emerging as a dominant part of respondents’ long-term IT roadmap and Microsoft Azure is the most-often cited public cloud vendor amongst the surveyed population.

“This report captures a clear picture of the industry and reveals how companies’ investments in cloud services have changed over the past year,” said Bryan Doerr, Executive Vice President of Product and Technology. “With nearly half of respondents indicating they’ve chosen a new provider in the last year, it’s clear that shares of the cloud market are completely up for grabs between the major providers. What’s most important for organizations right now is investing in the right cloud strategy for their IT workloads.”

More than pricing or vendor incentives, security and technical requirements are top drivers of cloud decision-making, according to the study. More than half of respondents (56%) indicated that security considerations have a “significant impact” on the final decision when choosing a provider. In addition to organizations moving toward multi-cloud strategies, private cloud environments remain important to organizations attempting to make optimal workload-to-cloud placement decisions.

Some of the key findings from the survey include: 

• Microsoft Azure ranks as the most popular public cloud provider among respondents (58%), followed by Google Cloud (41%), IBM (40%) and AWS (38%). However, only 1% said they have always had the same cloud provider or platform.

• Nearly half (46%) of respondents indicated they have chosen a new provider or platform within the last year — and more than a quarter (26%) have done so in the past six months. Only 1% said they have always had the same cloud provider or platform.

• Currently, 42% of respondents are pursuing a multi-cloud strategy.

• The overwhelming majority of private cloud users (80%) said better information security was the reason for using a private cloud environment. 

• 89% of healthcare organizations and 81% of public sector respondents say they will continue to have a need for private cloud in the next 5 years.

“After major disruptions in the past year, the need for a modern technology stack is fueling cloud adoption in every industry,” Doerr said. “To capitalize on the opportunities available in the market right now, cloud providers must meet the complex security and legacy workload needs of organizations. With the right partner, companies can harness the power of the cloud to achieve their transformation goals.”