The Surprising (or maybe not) State of the Cloud in the Enterprise

What is the actual state of the cloud in the enterprise?

After years of talking about the cloud (not to mention an abundance of ‘cloud washing’), are we nearing the point of enterprises being 100% in the cloud? Is so-called “cloud first” finally the default operating model?

I recently had the opportunity to chat with about forty senior IT leaders and ask these questions. The results were somewhat surprising — or, upon reflection, maybe not so surprising after all.

Only one exec said they were already 100% in the cloud. No big surprise there (the real surprise may be that anyone has achieved that status!). But much more surprising was that only a few said they were even heading in that direction.

It was a similar story when it comes to so-called “cloud first.” I would have guessed that the vast majority had taken this mantra up as a mandate or at least a core direction. But surprisingly the group of execs taking this approach was a distinct minority.

When it comes to the movement to the cloud, the reality seems quite distant from the hype and much more pragmatic. The cost of running often-intense core workloads in the cloud, coupled with the technical and organizational challenges of migrating act as a counter balance to the benefits of flexibility and agility.

The unsurprising result is that most organizations are functioning in a hybrid, multi-cloud environment — and will be for the foreseeable future.

So, are you surprised by this current state or is it what you expected?

#IT #CIO #ITOps #Cloud #CloudFirst