Head in the Cloud? 85% of Businesses Will Embrace a Cloud-First Strategy by 2025
Cloud adoption continues to grow, with recent research showing that most businesses are incorporating cloud computing, whole or in part, into their IT enterprise strategy.
In fact, one striking prediction from Gartner, a major analyst firm, forecasts that 85% of businesses will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025.
The method of cloud adoption varies, however, with current trends suggesting that businesses are leaning more toward hybrid cloud strategies. Public cloud adoption remains a major player in the mix, but not at the pace or level once expected. According to Gartner, more than half of enterprise IT spending in key market segments will shift to the public cloud by 2025. That means that enterprise IT spending on public cloud will finally surpass traditional IT spending in some corners of the market soon.
Whatever the configuration, cloud adoption appears to be here to stay and is continuing an upward trajectory. Several studies illustrate this trend.
According to Flexera’s 2021 State of the Cloud report, more than half of the nearly 800 decision makers surveyed use cloud heavily and have reached the advanced cloud maturity level. Another 40% of respondents were at various stages of cloud adoption.
Cloud spending also reflects continued growth. A report from Synergy Research Group showed that cloud revenues reached $544 billion in 2022, up 21% from 2021. Meanwhile, another Gartner study predicts that cloud revenue will surpass non-cloud revenue for relevant enterprise IT markets over the next few years.
What is fueling this phenomenal growth?
It’s generally recognized that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated cloud use due to surging numbers of remote workers and greater need for digital connectivity. Other factors have also played a significant role in the rush to the cloud – notably the increased scalability, reliability and security offered by quality cloud providers.
Another, more recent, addition has also enhanced cloud popularity: cloud-native applications. Cloud-native application development emerged in 2015 and has been growing ever since. While the terms “cloud-native” and “cloud-based” are often used interchangeably, important distinctions exist. Most importantly, cloud-native applications are developed in the cloud as compared to cloud-based applications, which leverage the cloud, but are built on traditional servers hosted in on-premises data centers.
Cloud-native applications are designed to take advantage of the elasticity and distributed nature of the cloud and enjoy a faster development cycle, greater agility and scalability compared to server-based platforms. This, coupled with other advantages like portability, have led to predictions that over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms by 2025, up from 30% in 2021.
Is the Cloud Right for Every Business?
The simple answer is “no.” Surging energy prices have forced some public cloud providers to raise prices significantly. This, coupled with concerns over data control and other factors, have given some businesses room for pause and prompted them to consider other options. While public cloud remains the dominant cloud force, some businesses are looking into alternatives, such as cloud repatriation or hybrid cloud.
Cloud repatriation refers to a company’s decision to move workloads or applications from the public cloud back in-house, to a private cloud or to another location. A 2021 survey by 451 Research found that 48% of 600 IT decision makers migrated one or more of their apps or workloads from the public cloud to another location.
Other businesses are turning to a hybrid cloud model, which enables them to more easily control their data. According to a recent survey of cloud users by Flexera, 89 percent of respondents reported having a multi-cloud strategy, and 80 percent are using a hybrid approach by combining use of both public and private clouds.
Turning to LightEdge for Assistance
With a range of IT options for running your IT infrastructure, it can be difficult to choose the best fit for your business. LightEdge can help. LightEdge has been the leader in compliant cloud and colocation for more than 25 years. If you’d like to learn more about how LightEdge can help your organization choose the best approach for your IT needs, please contact us.
