90 percent of organizations cite concerns about cloud usage

New research announced by SoftwareONE, the leading software and cloud portfolio management provider, finds that while cloud adoption continues to rise, organizations struggle to understand and balance the burgeoning technology with their existing on-premises solutions. These findings are included in SoftwareONE’s new report, “Managing and Understanding On-Premises and Cloud Spend.”

SoftwareONE contracted an independent research firm to survey CIOs and IT decision makers at North American organizations of varying sizes and industries to examine the state of both on-premises and cloud adoption and management.

Key takeaways and findings from the research include:

Organizations struggle with high cloud costs and low visibility
While many businesses gravitate towards the cloud to cut IT costs, the reality is that 37 percent of organizations surveyed listed unpredictable costs as a top cloud pain point. This is exacerbated by the lack of transparency into cloud resource usage - something nearly one-third of these companies find to be a challenge.

These roadblocks put cloud costs in the top two concerns (behind only security) for organizations when using the cloud. In fact, 90 percent of all organizations surveyed identified concerns about using the cloud.

On-premises isn’t going anywhere
Almost half (45 percent) of organizations are either increasing or maintaining their on-premises investments in the coming year. Further, there is a growing disconnect between C-level and IT decision makers, with 56 percent of C-level executives believing that their organizations have migrated workloads to the cloud, compared to only 35 percent of IT directors who believe the same.

Hybrid approach to IT is the new norm
The majority (53 percent) of companies are committed to a hybrid approach (combination of on-premises and cloud). This has become the logical landing point for most organizations as they move through the phases of cloud implementation; retaining legacy applications, retiring underutilized applications and ‘re-hosting,’ or moving applications, to the cloud through a consumption-based approach.

“There’s no doubt that cloud computing provides significant operational advantages to most enterprises. However, like so many other trends in IT, we often hit a point of maximum hype as a result of provider marketing and media frenzy,” said Mike Gersten, chief strategy and innovation officer of SoftwareONE.

“Once, organizations have realized the early benefits, the real challenge resides in navigating the optimal balance between on-premises and cloud to meet business objectives. The survey data supports what those on the ground have been feeling all along; while cloud technology is the answer to many IT challenges, it also presents new challenges to address, causing shifting sand for many IT organizations.”