Multi-cloud is overwhelmingly the standard operations model for IT organizations of all sizes, in all regions, and every industry, according to State of Cloud Strategy report by multi-cloud automation company HashiCorp.
The report surveyed over 3,000 IT professionals about the state of cloud adoption, challenges and inhibitors, as well as the COVID-19’s effect on cloud adoption.
Currently, 76% of survey respondents state their organization has already adopted a multi-cloud strategy and this number is expected to increase to 86% in two years. Fifty-three percent of respondents believe that a multi-cloud strategy has helped to achieve the organization’s business goals, with large enterprises currently recognizing the most value from multi-cloud.
Digital transformation (34%) was cited by respondents as the number one most significant driver for multi-cloud adoption, followed by avoiding single vendor lock-in (30%) and cost reductions (28%). Digital transformation ranked highest among large enterprises, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, and within the financial services vertical.
Of the big three public clouds, AWS was the leading cloud provider used by respondents (88%). However, respondents expect their use of AWS to remain the same during the next two years. Microsoft Azure ranked second in terms of use or intended use (74%), while Google Cloud was third (64%).
Cloud budgets vary by organization size, vertical, and geographic region. Forty percent of respondents’ organizations have an annual cloud spend of $100,000 to $2 million, while 27% of organizations spend less than $100,000 annually. Eighteen percent of organizations spend between $2 million and $10 million, and 15% spend more than $10 million annually.
Thirty-nine percent of respondents said their organization overspent their planned budgets on cloud, most often because of shifting priorities (29%) or because of unexpected needs related to COVID-19 (21%). Organizations with larger cloud budgets were more likely to have a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE), with 66% of organizations with an annual cloud budget of $5 million to $50 million having one, compared to 40% of organizations overall surveyed.
Survey results showed that cloud security was both a driver and an inhibitor for multi-cloud adoption. Respondents agreed that the top cloud security concerns were data and privacy protection (40%), data theft (33%), and regulatory compliance (31%).
Staffing and skill shortages (26%) topped the list when respondents were asked about the most significant cloud security challenges. That was followed by insufficient tooling and no real-time visibility and insight (12% each).