VMware Study: Service, Support Top List for CSPs

Beneath the top-line results gleaned from a recent VMware (NYSE: VMW) cloud adoption study, which shows the advancement of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in midmarket and enterprise companies, lies cloud service providers’ marching orders: service and support.

The study, conducted for VMware by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), uncovered that two out of every three midmarket and enterprise companies surveyed are running mission-critical workloads on IaaS. ESG surveyed some 243 IT and business professionals using cloud services, particularly IaaS, in midmarket and large enterprises in North America and Western Europe.

“The study demonstrates that IaaS from cloud service providers is seeing broad adoption by mainstream business for business-critical applications and data, moving beyond test and development,” said Mathew Lodge, VMware vice president, Cloud Services.

Indeed, the work produced some enlightening data that spoke to cloud service use:

• 70 percent of the study’s participants are using storage, 58 percent are using on-demand compute and 53 percent are using disaster recovery
• More than 80 percent of the respondents are running production workloads on IaaS
• 83 percent said that the underlying technology used to deliver IaaS was important, with nearly half identifying it as "very important" or "critical" when considering IaaS
• 78 percent are opting for infrastructure technologies compatible with their own private cloud or virtualized data center.

But from among all that trend line data, the shining star that emerged was the 80 percent of the study’s participants who pointed to service and support as the single-most important factor in selecting a cloud service provider, dwarfing the 25 percent who cited total cost of ownership (TCO) as the main determinant.

“As IaaS adoption grows, so does the importance of strong customer service and support as well as the quality of the underlying technology,” said Lodge.

Just goes to show you that no matter the technology environment, the basics of service and support still carry the day.