Over the next one to three years, it is anticipated that the adoption of hybrid multicloud models will double - as IT decision makers come under increased pressure to update their IT infrastructures due to factors like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and sustainability. It’s the result of a study conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Nutanix, measuring the use of cloud computing by enterprises worldwide.
Lee Caswell, the Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing at NutanixFor the sixth year in a row, Vanson Bourne surveyed 1,500 IT and DevOps/Platform Engineering decision-makers worldwide in December 2023 on behalf of Nutanix. The respondent base included companies of all sizes, from small to large, from North and South America to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) to the Asia-Pacific-Japan (APJ) area. The study’s findings are documented in Nutanix’s Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report.
The ECI report emphasizes the growing significance of hybrid multicloud architecture as enterprises struggle with the challenges of transferring applications and data between environments.
According to the ECI research, the main factors influencing applications’ migration from one environment to another in the previous year were security and innovation. ECI respondents ranked investing in AI strategy assistance as their top priority, closely followed by investing in IT modernization, as AI becomes more and more important to organizations.
Data Center, Public Cloud, Edge
Key findings from this year’s ECI report include the following:
- Hybrid multicloud infrastructure deployments will become an infrastructure standard - The majority of ECI respondents are adopting a strategic approach to their infrastructure strategy, carefully selecting the most suitable environment for each of their applications, whether it be a data center, public cloud, or edge. With the widespread adoption of this approach, it's not surprising that hybrid and multicloud environments have become the standard infrastructure. In addition, a majority of organizations recognize the advantages of hybrid IT environments in terms of application and data management. It is worth noting that implementing hybrid IT has become a top priority for many CIOs, indicating its growing importance in the executive agenda.
- Ransomware protection is top of mind for both CXOs and practitioners but most organizations continue to struggle in the wake of attacks - Continuing into 2024, the ongoing battle between malicious actors and enterprise cybersecurity professionals will keep ransomware and malware attacks as significant threats to modern enterprises. However, ensuring the cybersecurity and recovery of data continues to be a significant hurdle. A majority of ECI respondents (71%) who encountered a ransomware attack reported that it took them several days, or even weeks, to fully restore their operations. To tackle this issue, a significant number of organizations have expressed their intention to boost investments in ransomware protection solutions throughout the year.
- As organizations seek equilibrium driven by security and innovation, application and data movement remains a complex challenge - Enterprise workloads, including their applications and data, are typically deployed in the IT environment that best meets their requirements. This could be an on-premises data center, the public cloud, a smaller edge location, or a combination of all three. The wide range of application placement options is one of the main factors behind the significant number of application migrations reported by 95% of ECI respondents in the past year. The primary motivations for these migrations were enhancing security measures and fostering innovation. Enterprises should anticipate that application and data movement will continue to be consistent. It is important to plan infrastructure choices with a focus on flexibility and visibility. Today, organizations encounter major obstacles in executing complex application migrations. According to 35% of ECI respondents, workload and application migration pose significant challenges due to their existing IT infrastructure.
- IT teams aren’t just planning their sustainability programs, they are actively implementing them starting with IT modernization - The survey found that 88% of ECI respondents prioritize sustainability in their organization. However, in contrast to the previous report when action was restricted, numerous firms are now indicating that they are actively undertaking measures to adopt sustainability initiatives, with the most prevalent one being the modernization of their IT infrastructure. This conclusion is intriguing and demonstrates the immediate influence of IT infrastructure on sustainability.
- Infrastructure modernization is becoming an imperative, driven by AI, modern applications and data growth - ECI respondents have prioritized increased investment to support their AI strategy as their top priority, with investment in IT modernization closely following. In addition, 37% of ECI respondents express concerns about the potential challenges of running AI applications on their existing IT infrastructure. Organizations are placing a high priority on IT modernization and edge infrastructure deployments to address this challenge. These initiatives enable faster processing and data access, helping to mitigate and overcome the obstacles. By doing so, it can enhance their capacity to connect data from various environments, providing a clearer understanding of the data's location within their extensive ecosystems.
“Given the current demands of AI, sustainability, and security, IT organizations are under immense pressure to swiftly modernize their IT infrastructure,” said Lee Caswell, the Senior Vice President of Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix. “A significant majority of ECI respondents are looking to invest in IT modernization, with a strong focus on increasing investments to support AI. What this year's ECI reveals is the importance of supporting future technologies by ensuring the resilience of IT infrastructure. Hybrid multicloud is gaining popularity as the preferred infrastructure standard due to its flexibility in supporting both traditional VM and modern containerized applications, as well as enabling seamless movement between different clouds and on-premises environments.”
