Hybrid cloud infrastructure is big business in today’s world, with its market value at $85.3 billion globally, and estimates predicting its rise to $262.4 billion by 2027 according to a new report. Hybrid cloud infrastructure is transforming data storage, collaboration, and the ways in which businesses run. As organizations discover new capabilities and solutions made possible with hybrid cloud, it’s imperative that distribution partners stay at the forefront of the new technology. Based on feedback from 2,500 global IT decision-makers and professionals, the recently released Global Hybrid Cloud Trends 2022 report analyzes the progress of hybrid cloud adoption and its impact.
With hybrid cloud infrastructure, multiple environments, including on-premises private, hosted private, or public/IaaS cloud, are managed from a central platform. The importance of hybrid cloud functionality cannot be understated. Of those surveyed for the Global Hybrid Cloud Trends report, 82 percent have adopted the hybrid cloud, and around half use 2-3 public IaaS clouds. A major reason for this adoption is the shift since 2020 to more remote work and an increasing need for more agility, scalability, and reach across networks. Organizations are improving security, performance, and resiliency through hybrid cloud adoption, while also meeting regulatory requirements.
By understanding what organizations need and how they are using hybrid cloud architecture, distributors can deliver the best solutions to partners. More than 80 percent of respondents to the survey said they used hybrid cloud infrastructure to host their workloads. While this hybrid approach is used for an array of workload solutions, the report found that the vast majority of organizations use them for backup or disaster recovery (73 percent) and application development (70 percent). Other popular workloads and applications running in hybrid IT environments include archiving, cloudbursting, security processes, and asset tracking.
While hybrid cloud offers many benefits, organizations have also faced challenges as they adjust. Although security is a driving factor for the shift to hybrid, it has also been a concern for organizations acclimating to the new environments. Some 37 percent of respondents noted security concerns are a significant challenge to deploying to multiple clouds. Developing and advancing threats are universal concerns for all new technologies; at the same time, new technologies are continuously emerging to address these threats. For many organizations, part of feeling secure with hybrid cloud is understanding how the platform can actually improve security through segmentation and isolation.
Along with security concerns, operational complexity and managing costs are the biggest challenges organizations have experienced with the adoption of hybrid cloud, according to the report. Almost a third of respondents disclosed that hybrid environments contributed to operational complexity. Although there are more environments to manage, many tools and resources have been developed over the past few years to help simplify the management of cloud environments. Helping retailers discover these tools for their customers to use can play a role in mollifying this issue.
While cost management has also been a challenge, many organizations are finding ways to keep spending down. Almost 60 percent of respondents shared that they use a cost/benefit approach to justify and load balance cloud service purchasing. Hybrid cloud has many challenges because of its newness, which can be overcome by education and awareness.
As the market value of hybrid cloud is predicted to rise more than $177 billion in just five years, it’s safe to assume that it’s a become an essential part of the “new normal.” In spite of the fact that many organizations have already begun shifting to hybrid environments, there is a huge discrepancy when it comes to how far they are along the adoption path. Staying on top of trends and understanding where organizations are in the adoption process can help distributors deliver an elevated customer experience.
