The acceleration of businesses’ migration to the cloud shows no signs of slowing, according to the 2013 Future of Cloud Computing survey of 855 business users, IT decision-makers and cloud vendors.
Of those surveyed, 75 percent indicated they already use the cloud in some form, representing an increase from 67 percent of respondents in 2012. These results align with GigaOM’s prediction that the global cloud computing market will explode to $158.8 billion next year, more than doubling in size from 2011.
The survey produces several further insights:
- 76 percent of those surveyed indicated that they foresee their organizations shifting to hybrid cloud solutions within five years.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) is the most populated sector of cloud computing, with 63 percent of organizations indicating they used it, up from 55 percent in 2012.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) was the fastest growing sector of cloud computing, with 45 percent of respondents indicating they used it, up from 35 percent in 2012.
- Survey results show that Platform as a Service (PaaS) is expected to grow the most over the next five years, with 72 percent of respondents indicating they expect their organizations to employ that service by 2019.
- Businesses are moving to the cloud for a variety of reasons. Survey respondents indicated business agility (54.5 percent), scalability (54.3 percent) and cost-efficiency (48 percent) were the most driving factors.
So what does it all mean? Decision-makers are realizing the benefits of hybrid clouds, as they’re able to leverage elements of both public and private clouds to construct custom architecture. Information that is non-essential to businesses can be stored in the more affordable public cloud, while sensitive materials can be held in a private cloud. Together, this creates the kind of versatile environment that brings enhanced agility and scalability to businesses.
Business owners are also concluding that leveraging SaaS, IaaS and PaaS simply makes sense. Odds are that most companies aren’t in the cloud business, and instead focus on serving their customers in some other regard. With that being the case, business owners are increasingly their technological infrastructure over to a cost-effective team of hosting experts. This frees up substantial resources and allows them to focus on mission-critical tasks.
Businesses increasingly understand the benefits cloud hosting affords, and they’re flocking to these versatile solutions. As hosted offerings continue to be refined and delivered in a more cost-effective manner, this trend should continue.