As organizations struggle to find and retain the talent they need to manage complex cloud implementations, many are leaning toward hybrid cloud as a solution. And by hybrid cloud, I mean a combination of public cloud, private clouds and on-premises infrastructure used together by organizations to store, manage, and run their data applications. While it's true that using the cloud is not a "one size fits all" proposition, it is clear that both large and small companies prefer a hybrid cloud model.

According to a recent study done by Parallels, a sub-brand of Alludo, 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 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% 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. About 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 (33%) and IT recruiting challenges (15%).

Hybrid Cloud for Hybrid Work

The 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%), and 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.

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.

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 US, UK and Germany.