More and more enterprises are choosing the cloud as their method of deploying software, but they need help.

A new survey by Microsoft partner Adaptiva found that most IT professionals see the cloud as the most effective place for deployment.

“The main advantage to the company, they stated, was elimination of on-site infrastructure,” Deepak Kumar, founder and CTO of Adaptiva, told Channel Partners. “I think the key advantages are speed, simplicity and cost.”

He also said cloud deployment of software will enable employees to become more mobile.

But deployment over cloud is by no means the current norm. The study found that 70 percent of respondents use on-premises deployments, while 21 percent use a hybrid model. That being said, 86 percent said they wanted to start using the cloud at some point, with 40 percent saying they would do so within the next two years. The demand is growing.

“Enterprises clearly want to move their systems-management activities to the cloud, but are concerned about the demands and costs that high-volume, cloud-based software deployments would place on their networks,” Kumar said.{ad}

Respondents cited three main concerns: technical experience (26 percent), lack of control (25 percent) and cost (22 percent). Others said that security concerns them. Respondents were split half-and-half on whether or not cloud deployment of software poses a security risk.  

Kumar said Adaptiva’s new content distribution engine, OneSite 6.0, will provide a “serverless” option for deploying software through the cloud.

“They can use whatever cloud infrastructure they have relationships with to help their customers deploy Windows 10 faster, deploy business applications faster and enable their customers and workers,” he said.

The survey asked 300 IT professionals how they deploy software and how likely they are to adopt cloud.