But What Will ‘Cloud-Switching’ Really Look Like?

Given the way the question was worded, the IT experts responding to SPR could be looking at using multiple clouds, rather than dumping one environment for another. Relying on different platforms lets organizations take advantage of different strengths and capabilities. There’s a lot to be said for “multicloud” adoption.

Indeed, throughout 2021 and into 2022, hybrid cloud will represent “the most popular” workloads destination, says Omdia’s Illsley. This will require enterprises to choose a multicloud or single-cloud supplier, he says.

“The enterprise must consider the agility, flexibility, simplicity, cost and reason for adopting cloud when making this key decision,” Illsley says.

In 2021, then, channel partners can expect to act as key consultants as organizations rethink any COVID-19-forced decisions.

“Pandemic-fueled projects that companies took on this year to facilitate a newly remote workforce … will begin to come under scrutiny, as many of these strategies have negatively impacted many businesses’ finances” says George Burns III, senior consultant, cloud operations at SPR.