The study of 150 enterprise CIOs and IT Directors finds that a large majority plan to combine public cloud and private data centres to deliver business applications - rather than opting for a cloud only (17%) or private data centre only approach (17%). Results also highlight trends in cloud networking, delivery, adoption and barriers to adoption.
To support the hybrid cloud model over 63% of businesses surveyed plan to use a mixture of traditional MPLS-based corporate networks and cost-effective IP-VPNs. With almost 70% of companies citing cost reduction as the primary driver for selecting a cloud project, moving to a hybrid networking strategy emerges as a popular route to control IT budgets.
Despite the increased complexity associated with adopting a hybrid networking model, surprisingly over 50% of companies plan to deploy and manage their on-going cloud program themselves, using their own IT department. Just 31% plan to outsource this process to external service providers to manage with the remainder not planning to adopt the cloud.
By the end of 2012 50% of companies are set to have a private cloud (completely virtualised central datacentre) in place. Almost a third have already implemented a private cloud with a further 20% expecting to have done so within the next two years. Security was seen as the primary barrier to cloud adoption with 58% of respondents believing security concerns prevented greater implementation. Performance of the cloud model was also viewed as a challenge with 39% of respondents viewing performance issues as a barrier to further adoption.
Béatrice Piquer, Marketing Director for Ipanema Technologies said of the research “From this research it’s clear that a combination of cloud and private data centres is becoming the primary model for enterprise IT. The cloud can bring great benefits but a hybrid model will add complexity as applications are delivered from a variety of locations across different networks.” She continued: “IT leaders taking on this challenge need to view the WAN as a strategic asset and guarantee performance at the application level.”