Current Trends in Enterprise Cloud Usage

February 25, 2022 / Cloud

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As 2022 gets underway, we are seeing the first published reports on how the cloud landscape has evolved over 2021. These paint an interesting picture of how enterprises are using the cloud and how their needs, priorities and cloud use change. In this post, we look at some of the important findings now being made public.

Enterprise public cloud usage grows

Enterprises are continuing to expand their use of the public cloud, with annual spending increasing. At the top end, over a third of companies now have annual cloud budgets of over £9 million. By the end of 2022, it is expected that more than half of workloads will take place in a public cloud environment. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is one of the growing public cloud attractions for enterprises, with more than half using it for data warehousing and over a quarter for deploying and experimenting with advanced AI and machine learning tools.

When it comes to judging how successful cloud strategies have been, three-quarters of enterprises take savings and cost-efficiency into account, while optimising cloud costs is a major priority for over 60% of companies. While most enterprises expect to expand their cloud migration, their main hurdle is the understanding of application dependencies.

Hybrid and multi-cloud become mainstream

The use of hybrid and multi-cloud has now become almost universal among larger organisations, with over 90% of enterprises using multi-cloud and 80% using hybrid cloud strategies. Most organisations have two to three public and private clouds in place, however, less than half of companies use multi-cloud management software.

Management trends

The main management trend for cloud during 2021 was to use a combination of managed cloud hosting and in-house administration. Almost two-thirds of companies work with managed solutions providers, like Hyperslice, to manage their public cloud operations, while three quarters also have in-house cloud teams with centralised control over IaaS and PaaS services. The managed services provided by cloud vendors help enterprises reduce the burden on IT teams, while the centralised administration ensures costs and usage can be kept under control.

One of the chief reasons this management approach has become popular is because many organisations find it a challenge to handle their increasing cloud spend. While significant capital expenditure savings are made through cloud migrations, unregulated use has led to an increase in unnecessary spending, with about a third of all cloud budgets going to waste. Managed services, meanwhile, cuts IT staff workloads and can, consequently, also reduce IT staffing costs.

Top tools

While less than half of enterprises use multi-cloud management tools, their adoption is increasing. So, too, is the use of cloud configuration tools, especially Ansible and Terraform, that enable companies to automate and manage infrastructure configuration, application deployment and cloud provisioning. The use of containers, meanwhile, has now become widespread. With enterprises wanting the convenience of being able to move applications painlessly from vendor to vendor or from public to private cloud, the ability of containers to allow software to run in any environment has become much sought after.

Key challenges

The major challenges facing cloud users seem to be consistent, year after year. The growing sophistication and number of cyberattacks have put security high on every company’s agenda. The consequences of becoming a victim of ransomware and suffering a data breach are, for many, the most urgent concerns. Spending on cloud security has increased and some enterprises are using the services of specialist companies who attempt to hack into their systems in order to discover and remove vulnerabilities.  

With the growing use of the cloud, two other important challenges are financial control and recruitment. Four out of five companies are concerned about managing cloud spending so it doesn’t spiral out of control, with eradicating wastage a priority. Recruitment wise, a greater demand for talent, combined with a shortage of suitably qualified and experienced IT professionals, means many companies feel their progress is held back. Increasingly, these organisations have to rely on third-party consultants to on-board the expertise they need. Finally, the introduction of new regulations, together with enterprises using a more diverse range of vendors and solutions means that both governance and compliance remain hurdles to overcome.

Conclusion

Cloud not only remains the environment of choice for enterprises; it is an area that they are making greater use of, with continued migrations, increasing workloads and a growing diversity of providers. With greater use, cloud management is becoming increasingly important, as is keeping tighter control over budgets.

Working closely with an experienced enterprise cloud solutions partner, like Hyperslice, can ensure your cloud needs are fully catered for by our expert teams. For more information, visit Hyperslice.com.

Author

  • Thomas Worthington

    I am an enthusiastic and original writer who loves to share my skills and views on website hosting, development and technology. I am curious and eager to learn about the latest advances and innovations in the web industry, and I always make sure to provide accurate and helpful information to my readers.

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