Parallels announced findings from its 2023 Hybrid Cloud Survey, conducted among IT professionals. A hybrid cloud setup is a combination of public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises infrastructures used together by organizations to store, manage, and run their data and applications.
The Parallels research revealed that the ease of talent search plays a pivotal role in driving the adoption of the hybrid cloud. In fact, a significant majority of IT professionals (62%) find a lack of cloud management skills gaps to be a barrier to growth, an issue even more prevalent in mid-size* companies (72%).
To cope, companies are increasing their use of hybrid cloud infrastructure. Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents, 64%, had already implemented a hybrid approach, and 38% of all respondents plan to further embrace a hybrid cloud approach in the next year.
The research also looked at the usage of the public cloud, uncovering that the majority derive most value from it. However, within large enterprises, 18% of respondents admit to not getting the most value out of the public cloud. 11% across all companies find themselves in a similar position. Among this group of respondents, 41% cite concerns over the complexity of migrating to the public cloud. This challenge is further exacerbated by a lack of in-house cloud expertise gaps (33%) and IT recruiting challenges (15%).
While it’s true that cloud use is not a ‘one size fits all’ proposition, it is clear that a hybrid cloud model is preferred by companies, both large and small,” said Prashant Ketkar, Chief Technology & Product Officer, Alludo. “As organizations struggle to find and retain the talent they need to manage complex cloud implementations, hybrid cloud can be the solution. By using a more incremental cloud adoption approach, supported by easy-to-manage software solutions that are enhanced with automation and security, IT professionals can realize the flexibility and cost savings they want from the cloud, without specialized cloud management expertise.”
“IDC’s xOps Census and Forecast 2022 to 2027 shows that the current gaps are of approximately 1.5 million IT professionals worldwide has already made it challenging for small and medium businesses to get the resources they need, driving a need for new innovation and infrastructure solutions”, said Shannon Kalvar, IDC Research Director. “Those gaps will expand to almost 8 million IT professionals worldwide by 2027 due to retirements and a lack of new entrants, forcing the industry to adopt entirely new ways of getting work done.”
Hybrid Cloud for Hybrid Work
The Parallels research found that hybrid cloud infrastructure is the most prevalent model for supporting a hybrid workforce. Out of the 83% of respondents who currently work in a hybrid (working both remote and in the office) structure, 82% use the hybrid cloud.
The top five benefits reported for the use of hybrid cloud, compared to 100% public cloud or 100% on-premises infrastructure, are:
- Increased flexibility (49%)
- Improved security (46%)
- Cost savings (45%)
- Increased reliability (44%)
- Scalability (40%)
Legacy Applications Persist
The continued significance of legacy applications is also contributing to the ongoing adoption of hybrid cloud. Nearly all (96%) of the IT professionals surveyed claim that they currently need legacy Windows and Linux applications, and almost half (49%) report that they will need to continue to access these legacy applications more than five years from now.
This is especially true for smaller companies with 54% signifying this is very important. Only 4% of those surveyed reported that they did not use any legacy applications. A hybrid cloud approach helps overcome the legacy application challenge by enabling incremental changes to the IT infrastructure, without a wholesale upgrade to applications that may not be cloud ready.
Parallels enables the simplified adoption of a hybrid cloud approach with its Parallels RAS (Remote Application Server) solution. The latest release of Parallels RAS enhances automation and security for end-user computing in a hybrid cloud environment while enabling cost efficiency and saving IT administration time in environments including Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). For more information, visit the website HERE.
Survey Methodology
Parallels’ Hybrid Cloud Survey was conducted in July 2023 with data from 805 IT professionals that are using the public cloud to some extent in U.S., UK and Germany. To see the full results of the study, click HERE.
*Note: Mid-size companies are defined as those with 500 to 1,999 employees.
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