Survey Highlights Need to Centralize and Automate Cloud Efforts via Platform Teams to Increase Operational Efficiency
HashiCorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCP), a leading provider of multi-cloud infrastructure automation software, today released its 2022 State of Cloud Strategy Survey showing strong business impacts from using multi-cloud infrastructure and an emphasis on centralized cloud platform teams to help deliver those results.
This year’s survey highlights the growing prevalence of multi-cloud, and shows how organizations are benefiting from a multi-cloud strategy, as they apply a common cloud operating model to realize value from the cloud. Results also highlight that cloud security, skills gaps, siloed teams, and inconsistent workflows are among the most common challenges hindering multi-cloud operations.
Key findings
- 81% choose multi-cloud: 60% of respondents are already using multi-cloud infrastructures, with an additional 21% saying they will be within the next 12 months.
- 90% say multi-cloud is working: Out of those who have already adopted a multi-cloud approach, the vast majority say it is already helping their organization advance or achieve their business goals.
- 86% rely on cloud platform teams: Organizations have identified the need for a centralized group such as a cloud platform team or Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) to operationalize their cloud efforts with common practices across their organization.
- 94% are overspending in the cloud: Almost all respondents noted avoidable cloud spend. Top reasons for this overspending included idle or underused resources, overprovisioned resources, and a lack of needed skills.
- Skills shortages ranks as the top multi-cloud barrier: Respondents noted skills shortages are exacerbating security risks, driving avoidable cloud spend, and hindering the organization’s ability to operationalize multi-cloud.
According to the survey results, multi-cloud is now the de facto standard for infrastructure among Enterprises, with the leading drivers for this cloud adoption strategy being reliability, digital transformation, scalability, and security and governance. However, organizations are still struggling with operational complexity in multi-cloud environments. As a result, organizations say they are implementing centralized functions, such as a cloud platform team or Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE), which are responsible for a variety of key tasks, including standardizing cloud services, creating best practices and operational policies, and centralizing security.
Nearly all respondents said their organization has incurred avoidable cloud spend, and one in four organizations said they surpassed their annual projected cloud spend. Factors that contribute to avoidable cloud spend were idle or underused resources, overprovisioning of resources, lack of needed skills, or manual containerization. Just 6% of respondents said they do not have any avoidable cloud spend.
“Looking at this year’s State of Cloud Strategy Survey, we see the generational shift that cloud represents for technology, organizational design, and delivery process,” said Armon Dadgar, co-founder and CTO, HashiCorp. “Organizations benefiting from multi-cloud nearly doubled from last year, and the majority of organizations now have a centralized cloud team. This centralized expertise enables them to operationalize at scale and benefit from their cloud strategies. Not surprisingly, we saw skills shortages move to the top of the list of cloud blockers, reinforcing the need for cloud platform teams and infrastructure and security automation tools.”
Survey methodology
For our second annual State of Cloud Strategy Survey, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to expand our respondent universe beyond the HashiCorp contact database and add independent analysis. Forrester conducted an online survey with 1,039 practitioners and technical decision makers across North America; Europe, Middle East, and Africa and Asia-Pacific. Those surveyed work at companies of 1,000 or more employees in a variety of industries.
Resources
HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey
Forrester Consulting study: Unlocking Multicloud’s Operational Potential
HashiCorp Blog: HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey 2022: Multi-Cloud Is Working
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