2018 Cloud Survey Results by Syncsort

Respondent
Profile
917 professionals
who do not work in computer
services or computer software
completed the survey.*
22% of them
have primary responsibility
for Cloud management or
planning Cloud initiatives
within their company.
Another 52% of them
share that responsibility.
73% of
respondents
have more than 100 employees
at their organization. 58% had
more than 500.
The most often cited industries were Health
Care, Education, Finance, and Banking each
with 8% of response.
2

Principal
Findings
Cloud adoption is widespread
and has evolved far beyond
early stage technology. The
majority of respondents (70%)
report using Cloud services.
31% are not using Cloud now;
Of those, 29% are planning to
use Cloud in the future.
(Approximately 78% use or will
be using Cloud.)
Cloud types used: The most
commonly chosen were Public
Clouds or Hosted Private
Clouds, each at 49%.* Hybrid
and On-premise followed, at
37% and 36% respectively.
• Analysis revealed that use of On-Premise
Private, Hybrid, and Multi-Cloud types
increased substantially with the number
of employees. (From those with less
than 100 employees, to those with more
than 1,000.) **
• Regarding plans for Cloud types, Hybrid
Clouds were the most common choice
(25%).***
Most popular cloud services:
Software as a Service (61%)
was used by the majority of
respondents, followed by
Infrastructure as a Service
(47%).****
Leading cloud benefits:
Respondents selected business
continuity, IT efficiency, and
operational cost savings (On a
1 – 5 scale, rated an average of
3.68, 3.51, and 3.44,
respectively.)
3

Principal
Findings
Top three
challenges
Security/Privacy in the cloud is
the chief concern of professionals
(On a 1 – 4 scale, rated an average
of 2.84.) System and application
integration (2.75), and increased
cost followed (2.71).*
Management
responsibility
The majority of respondents indicate
that internal IT staff has responsibility
for cloud security, disaster recovery,
and performance and capability
management (over 70%)—as
compared to Cloud service providers
(between 29% and 34%).**
Cloud strategy
Many organizations selectively
migrate applications to the
Cloud on an ad hoc basis (42%);
fewer (29%) have a centralized
strategy/center of excellence to
proactively plan and manage
applications that are migrated
and deployed to the Cloud.
Cost
Just over half the respondents
noted that Cloud has cost their
organizations more than anticipated
(53% Yes, 47% No). Of those that
spent more than anticipated,
migration and management
were the primary drivers
of increased cost.***4

Conclusions
Cloud use is pervasive, and
IT leaders view it as offering
great business benefits for
organizations, particularly
in IT management:
business continuity (preventing
business interruptions), IT
efficiency, and operational
cost savings.
Even though Cloud market
appears well established, certain
aspects are still evolving and will
challenge companies in years
to come:*
• Strategic thinking about Cloud is
needed. IT organizations most
common practice is the selective
and ad hoc migration of data/
applications to the Cloud. Fewer
have a centralized strategy to plan
and manage migration of
applications to the Cloud.
• Unsurprisingly, data and
application security/privacy in the
cloud are the chief concerns of
respondents.** More data and
applications are moving outside
the corporate firewall, indicated by
the majority’s use of SaaS, and
their fairly common use of IaaS
and PaaS.
• Professionals also perceived
system/application integration and
increased cost of the Cloud as
challenges.***
Though Cloud is a game-
changing tool, professionals
still have work to do—adopting
technologies, practices, and
methods to make their Cloud
initiatives more strategic and
secure.
5

• 49% of respondents use a Public Cloud or
Hosted Private (each). 37% use a Hybrid
and 36% an On-Premise Private.
• Only 14% use Multi-Cloud
6
Cloud Types Using
Note that this was a select all that apply
question so responses will not total to 100%.
Public Hosted
Private
Hybrid On-Premise
Private
Multi-cloud Don’t know Other
(please
specify)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Does your company currently use any of the
following Cloud types? Select all that apply.

Regarding their Cloud strategy,
42% indicated that We selectively
migrate/deploy applications to
the cloud on an ad-hoc basis.
39% indicated We expect to
always have a data center, with
a hybrid model.
Only 14% reported that We
prefer Cloud-native solutions.
7
Cloud Strategy
We selectively
migrate/deploy
applications to
the cloud on an
ad-hoc basis.
We expect to
always have a
data center,
with a hybrid
model.
We have a
centralized
strategy/center
of excellence to
proactively plan
and manage
what
applications we
migrate and
deploy to the
cloud.
Our goal is
standardization.
Our goal is to
eventually
adopt an all-
cloud strategy.
We have a
Cloud-first
strategy.
We prefer
Cloud-native
solutions.
Other (please
specify)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Which of the following describes your organization’s
Cloud strategy? Select all that apply.

• 61% of respondents use SaaS and 47%
use Iaas (Infrastructure as a Service).
• Only 8% use Capacity Management as
a Service.
8
Cloud Services
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Does your company use any of the following
Cloud services? Select all that apply.

• 22% of respondents reported that they
have no plans to use DRaaS.
• 14% are currently using it. Another 10%
indicated that they will adopt it in less
than a year and 17% will adopt in the
next 1 to 2 years.
9
DRaaS Use
We are
currently
using DRaaS
We plan to
adopt DRaaS
in less than a
year
We plan to
adopt DRaaS
in 1-2 years
We plan to
adopt DRaaS
in 3-5 years
We plan to
adopt DRaaS
in 5 years or
more
We have no
plans to adopt
DRaaS
I don’t know
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
What are your organization’s plans regarding implementing
Disaster Recovery as a Service
(DRaaS) in a ground to cloud, cloud to cloud,
or cloud to ground configuration?

The top organizational concern regarding
DRaas was Privacy concerns (49%). This
was followed by Regulatory compliance
issues at 37%.
Only 9% of respondents reported Lack of
IT knowledge as a concern.
10
DRaaS Challenges
question so responses will not total to 100%. 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
What challenges does your organization face in
using or considering cloud solutions for DRaaS?
Select all that apply.

Regarding Cloud responsibilities, over 70%
of respondents indicated that the Internal IT
organization was responsible for Security,
Disaster Recovery and Managing Capacity
& Performance.
The figures for Cloud Service Providers in
these areas were around 30%.
So the figures for Internal IT were roughly
more than double those of Cloud providers.
11
Cloud Responsibilities
Security Disaster Recovery Managing Capacity and
Performance
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Who is responsible for each of the following
areas of cloud? Select all that apply.
Cloud service provider
Internal IT organization
Don't know
Other

• The most often used Big Data tool for
the Cloud was Azure SQL (25%).
• 15% reported using Spark and 14%
selected Azure Event Hub.
• Only 4% use Impala.
12
Big Data Tools
for Cloud
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Which of the following “Big Data” tools and frameworks
does your company use in the Cloud? Select all that apply.

• 40% of respondents indicated that they
connect On-premise Data Warehouse(s)
to the cloud. This was closely followed
by On-premise RDBMS with 34%.
• The remaining options received 16%
response or less.
13
Data Sources for Cloud
On-premise
Data
Warehouse
On-premise
RDBMS
On-premise
Hadoop
Cluster
On-premise
NoSQL
Database
Mainframe IBM i server Other Cloud
sources
Other
(please
specify)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
What data source(s) do you connect to the Cloud?
Select all that apply.

Respondents were asked to rate a set of areas
of Cloud computing as representing No Challenge,
Minimal, Moderate or Major Challenge.
Responses were tallied on a 4-point scale
(1=No Challenge...4=Major Challenge).
The area with the greatest average challenge
was Data and application security/privacy at 2.84.
Integrating with existing systems and/or applications
followed at 2.75 and Increased cost at 2.71.
Vendor lock-in with one Cloud service provider
had the lowest average at 2.47.
14
Cloud Challenges
Ratings
2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9
Data and application security/privacy
Integrating with existing systems and/or
applications
Increased cost
Government/Industry regulatory compliance
Increased complexity
Internal skills/resources
Data governance and lineage
Performance/latency
Capacity and application performance
planning/management
Data availability/disaster recovery
Keeping data in sync with on-premise systems
Ensuring SLAs and incident response time
requirements are met
Vendor lock-in with one Cloud service provider
Please rate the amount of challenge to your organization
for the following areas of Cloud computing.

Respondents were also asked to rate benefits
of Cloud computing and their responses
were tallied on a 5-point scale
(1=Not Important...5=Highly Important).
The benefit with the highest average was
Business continuity (3.68) followed by IT
efficiency at 3.51 and Operational cost
savings at 3.44.
Convenience for the development teams
had the lowest average benefit at 3.00
15
Cloud Benefits Ratings
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
Business continuity
IT efficiency
Operational cost savings
Elastic capacity – scale up, scale down as needed
IT capacity on demand
Capital expense cost savings
Ability to rapidly launch new products and services
Controlled, auditable document and data sharing
Ability to supplement in-house skills and resources
Improved collaboration
Convenience for the development teams
What does your organization view as the
most important benefits of the cloud?

Just over half of respondents indicated
that the cloud cost their company more
than anticipated (53%).
16
Cloud Cost More
Than Anticipated?
Yes No
40%
45%
50%
55%
Has the cloud cost your company
more than anticipated?

Of those who reported that costs were
more than anticipated, the two leading
drivers were Migration costs (62%) and
Management costs (57%).
The lowest sources of cost were
Purchasing too much capacity (19%)
and Availability/Recovery issues that
impacted the business (17%).
17
What Driving Up
(Cloud) Costs?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
In the previous question, you noted that the Cloud
cost your company more than anticipated.
What is driving up the costs? Select all that apply.

• One-quarter of respondents
reported that they will begin
using a Hybrid cloud.*
• 20% (each) will begin using a
Public or Hosted Private cloud.
• Only 12% will use a Multi-cloud.
18
Cloud Type Plans
question so responses will not total to 100%. Hybrid Public Hosted
Private
On-Premise
Private
Multi-cloud We have no
plans to
begin using
these Cloud
types.
Don’t know Other
(please
specify)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Does your company plan to BEGIN using any of the
following Cloud types? Select all that apply.

Regarding plans for Cloud services, 24% of
respondents indicated that they will begin
using Software as a Service and 21% will
use Infrastructure as a Service.
Only 8% reported that they will begin
using Capacity Management as a Service.
19
Cloud Service Plans
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Does your company plan to BEGIN using any of the following
Cloud services? Select all that apply.

2018 Cloud Survey Results by Syncsort

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Editor's Notes