Optimizing existing use of cloud is the top initiative — for the seventh year in a row, reported by 62% of respondents in the Flexera 2023 State of the Cloud Report.
"This is a watershed year for cloud usage, as the report findings demonstrate," said Brian Adler, Senior Director, Cloud Market Strategy at Flexera. "We saw FinOps continue to gain traction, cost management challenges pass security as the top cloud challenge for the first time, and artificial intelligence (AI) lead all plans and experimentation of public cloud services. As economic uncertainties wane in the months or years to come, companies will continue to lean into the cloud to transform their businesses, with the goal of finding competitive advantages."
Additional highlights of the report:
Managing cloud spend overtakes security as top cloud challenge
This year marks the first time in more than a decade that managing cloud spend has overtaken security as the top challenge facing organizations. As in previous years, a lack of resources/expertise also continues to be a significant challenge.
Organizations embracing multi-cloud
Respondents indicated a slight drift toward single public cloud usage, with multi-cloud decreasing from 89% last year to 87% this year. Single public cloud usage has increased to 11%, up from 9% last year.
Use of multi-cloud tools by large enterprises is higher for FinOps than for security
Across the board for all organizations, multi-cloud security tools continue to lead, followed closely by tools for multi-cloud cost optimization (FinOps). However, large enterprises reverse the order, with 68% using multi-cloud FinOps tools and 63% using multi-cloud security tools.
Siloed apps and disaster recovery (DR)/failover are the top multi-cloud implementations
Apps siloed on different clouds and DR/failover between clouds have remained the top two multi-cloud implementations. Intelligent workload placement is increasing the fastest (up 20% year over year).
AWS and Azure still lead overall
Last year was the first year Azure surpassed AWS in adoption rates, but as shown in the 2023 report respondents indicated AWS is back on top, with 47% using the provider in significant workloads and 41% using Azure. Oracle, IBM and Alibaba cloud services remained relatively unchanged.
AWS leads SMB public cloud adoption
SMBs (businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees) continue to favor AWS over other cloud providers, with 71% using AWS and 51% using Azure. Usage of Google Cloud Platform among SMBs has significantly decreased, from 43% to 28% year over year.
Big plans for AI
Similar to last year, data warehouse is the most commonly used PaaS offering, followed by DBaaS (relational). Machine learning/artificial intelligence is being experimented with more than any other service; not surprisingly, it’s also the leading PaaS offering that is being planned for use.
Economic uncertainty is growing cloud usage
45% of respondents said economic uncertainty would have very little impact on cloud usage and spend; 9% said they would lower cloud spending somewhat, and 1% said they would lower cloud spending significantly.
Methodology: The survey tapped 750 IT professionals and executive leaders worldwide representing a broad cross-section of industries and context areas in the winter of 2022.
The Latest
The use of hybrid multicloud models is forecasted to double over the next one to three years as IT decision makers are facing new pressures to modernize IT infrastructures because of drivers like AI, security, and sustainability, according to the Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) report from Nutanix ...
Over the last 20 years Digital Employee Experience has become a necessity for companies committed to digital transformation and improving IT experiences. In fact, by 2025, more than 50% of IT organizations will use digital employee experience to prioritize and measure digital initiative success ...
While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today ...
In our latest research, Cisco's The App Attention Index 2023: Beware the Application Generation, 62% of consumers report their expectations for digital experiences are far higher than they were two years ago, and 64% state they are less forgiving of poor digital services than they were just 12 months ago ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 5, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the network source of truth ...
A vast majority (89%) of organizations have rapidly expanded their technology in the past few years and three quarters (76%) say it's brought with it increased "chaos" that they have to manage, according to Situation Report 2024: Managing Technology Chaos from Software AG ...
In 2024 the number one challenge facing IT teams is a lack of skilled workers, and many are turning to automation as an answer, according to IT Trends: 2024 Industry Report ...
Organizations are continuing to embrace multicloud environments and cloud-native architectures to enable rapid transformation and deliver secure innovation. However, despite the speed, scale, and agility enabled by these modern cloud ecosystems, organizations are struggling to manage the explosion of data they create, according to The state of observability 2024: Overcoming complexity through AI-driven analytics and automation strategies, a report from Dynatrace ...
Organizations recognize the value of observability, but only 10% of them are actually practicing full observability of their applications and infrastructure. This is among the key findings from the recently completed Logz.io 2024 Observability Pulse Survey and Report ...
Businesses must adopt a comprehensive Internet Performance Monitoring (IPM) strategy, says Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT analyst research firm. This strategy is crucial to bridge the significant observability gap within today's complex IT infrastructures. The recommendation is particularly timely, given that 99% of enterprises are expanding their use of the Internet as a primary connectivity conduit while facing challenges due to the inefficiency of multiple, disjointed monitoring tools, according to Modern Enterprises Must Boost Observability with Internet Performance Monitoring, a new report from EMA and Catchpoint ...
