Security and agility underpin Hybrid Cloud adoption

EMC has released the findings of a global study of 10,451 IT business decision-makers across 33 countries, conducted by Vanson Bourne, which gauged global sentiment about IT’s evolving role in organizations today. The survey revealed increasing adoption of cloud computing globally, with the majority of respondents citing hybrid cloud as their preferred option for greater agility and security.

Respondents believe IT is a business enabler now more than ever before, yet spending is moving outside of its control. To help support business growth, a majority of respondents believe IT must act as an in-house broker of on-demand services. This pressure combined with a widening IT skills gap appears to be driving interest among IT professionals in pursuing hybrid cloud.

Critical findings from the survey include:

Challenges and Drivers for Adoption

· While 71% of respondents favor a strategy for IT to serve as an in-house broker of on-demand services, survey data indicates a lack of confidence in IT’s own ability to help drive business growth.
· 35% believe their organization doesn’t have the right level of skills and knowledge to achieve key business priorities.
· 69% of respondents believe training IT staff to keep pace with the implications of megatrends such as cloud, mobile, social, and Big Data, will be a challenge for their organization over the next 1-2 years.
Increasing Importance of Hybrid Cloud & Automation

This has put the spotlight on automation and innovations such as hybrid cloud.
· Hybrid cloud adoption has grown 9% since 2013, with 27% uptake across the globe, the highest being the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region (28%), followed by Latin America (24%) and Asia Pacific and Japan (24%).
· Roughly two-thirds of global respondents (64%) expressed a need for a hybrid cloud due to the agility and security it provides.
· 74% believe that increasing automation in their infrastructure is imperative to business growth.

Future of Cloud & Scepticism Towards Public

· While organizations are moving increasingly online, only 16% of respondents would be willing to host any application on a public cloud.
· The applications that most respondents would not be willing to put in the public cloud include financial planning (39%), human capital management (35%) and ERP (32%).
· Developed markets with more advanced IT economies lead the charge for cloud adoption, while Emerging markets appear to be more risk averse with lower levels of cloud uptake overall.
· Emerging markets are, however, more positive about the IT department and hybrid cloud – 79% say they expect a competitive advantage from megatrends such as cloud, mobile, social, and Big Data (vs. 75% of developed countries) and 67% think combining public and private cloud will improve security and agility (vs. 60% of developed countries)