Cloud future
The Future Is the Cloud
88% of respondents believe that cloud computing is the future model of IT. In terms of believing in the value of the cloud, 67% said they are “cloud believers,” 19% said they are “unconvinced” and 13.5% need more information.
Cloud Adoption Grows
Servers/data centers, Microsoft Exchange and co-location/backup are the top three adopted cloud services. A full 81% of respondents have deployed at least one service in the cloud with organizations, on average, deploying 2.7 services.
Cloud Deployment Plans
On average, believers in the cloud deployed 3.3 services, while the unconvinced migrated only 1.4 services. However, 54% of the unconvinced expect to shift at least one service to the cloud in the next three years.
Cloud Service on Deck
75% of respondents expect to add new or additional cloud services over the next three years. On deck for migration include servers/data centers (34%), co-location/backup infrastructure (22%), phone systems (22%), Microsoft Office (21.5%) and Microsoft Exchange (21%).
Moving to the Cloud
58% of respondents believe their IT staff can implement a cloud strategy independently; only 29% indicated that on-staff knowledge is a barrier to migrating services.
In-House vs. Third-Party Cloud Providers
43.5% of companies that migrated services handled the process internally, versus 56.5% that used a third party. However, of the companies that migrated to the cloud using only internal IT staff, 24% said they would use a third party next time.
Valued Cloud Partners
For companies that used a third party to migrate services to the cloud, 42.5% worked directly with a cloud service provider, 20% used a consultant/VAR, and 18% worked with a data center/infrastructure provider. Other partners included MSPs, network providers and security vendors.
Single Cloud Provider, Please
62% of respondents prefer to rely on a single cloud provider to handle their variety of services, including servers/data centers, co-location, Microsoft Exchange, phone systems and desktops.
Top 5 Reasons for Vendor Selection
71.5% of respondents said price was a top factor in vendor selection, followed by security policies (65%), easy-to-use management systems (50.5%), ease of migration (49%) and availability of service-level agreements (43%).
Selecting a Hypervisor
82.5% of respondents using cloud services said VMware ESX was their hypervisor of choice; 26% deployed Citrix Xen and 6% deployed KVM.
Disaster Avoidance and Recovery
73% of respondents said disaster avoidance/recovery was the number one expected benefit from the cloud. Other big benefits cited include flexibility (62%), stability (61%) and lower total cost of ownership (60%).
Top Barriers to Cloud Remain
The top two concerns or barriers are security (53%) and privacy (36%). The good news is cloud adoption barriers have declined overall, compared with 2013.
Bigger Budgets for Cloud
Budgets for cloud services are increasing year-over-year; 42% of respondents said their budgets increased in 2014, and 54% expect an increase in 2015.