Survey Finds Majority of IT Professionals Will Adopt Cloud Tech Within 5 Years

Most businesses are adopting a hybrid of cloud and on-premises solutions or migrating fully to the cloud within five years. This is according to a study by Hornetsecurity, where more than 93% of IT professionals said they were making this transition. The company surveyed more than 900 people.

One-half of respondents (51%) said they will be “mostly in the cloud” in five years, with one or two workloads remaining on premises. Twenty-eight percent said they will remain “mostly on premises,” with a workload or two in the cloud.

Approximately 29% of respondents said they are using hybrid cloud solutions as a steppingstone to a full cloud environment. However, two in three (67%) see hybrid as a final destination for their infrastructure due to workloads that must remain on premises. The rest say they are remaining 100% in-house. When asked why companies were remaining on premises, many respondents cited data control, security and cost concerns with cloud technology.

Trust Issues with Cloud

The hybrid cloud adoption survey also found that trust issues with the public cloud are present within companies of all sizes, with 31-36% of all surveyed company size categories reporting concerns.

The survey also shows that with experience comes more distrust in the public cloud. Respondents with more than 20 years of experience were more likely to express concerns with the trustworthiness of cloud platforms (34%) than those with one to five years of experience (24%). One-half of all respondents mentioned “legacy systems or software” as another major reason certain workloads must remain on premises. “Application compatibility” was reported as a roadblock to cloud migration for four in 10 companies.

Industry regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA and CMMC, among others were also cited as obstacles for cloud adoption by 29% of respondents.

Multiple Challenges Blocking Cloud Adoption

Companies say they are holding back from full cloud migration. This is because of a lack of “technical knowhow or certified staff” (48%). They also hesitate because of difficulties with “application of best practices within the company” (33%), issues with connectivity (33%), and “secured access” (29%).

The most common workload preventing IT departments from lifting all services to the cloud was “print and imaging services” (55%). Databases, file storage and application services are also cited by companies as reasons for remaining partially on premises. Approximately 50%, 45% and 43% of respondents indicated such, respectively.

Hornetsecurity’s survey reveals that hybrid cloud solutions still present several challenges. Chief among them is “monitoring and security,” with one-half of respondents expressing concerns in this area. “Networking and connectivity” is another concern shared by nearly half of all respondents (48%). Finally, “training and certification,” “manageability and tooling,” and “resiliency and data recovery” also factor into the concerns. This was shared by 35%, 35% and 33% of respondents, respectively.

Nearly half (47%) of respondents form part of internal IT teams. They reported that they see their workloads “mostly in the cloud” in five years. This compares to 52% of respondents whose companies use MSP services, and 54% of respondents that work at MSPs. Internal IT departments report a lack of trust in cloud services at almost the same rate as those using MSP services — 34% and 33%, respectively.