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• U.S.-based organisations are budgeting $1.77M for cloud spending in 2017 compared to $1.30M for non-U.S. based organisations.
• 10% of enterprises with over 1,000 employees are projecting they will spend $10M or more on cloud computing apps and platforms throughout this year.
• Organisations are using multiple cloud models to meet their business’s needs, including private (62%), public (60%), and hybrid (26%).
• By 2018 the typical IT department will have the minority of their apps and platforms (40%) residing in on-premise systems.

These and many other insights are from IDG’s Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey, 2016. You can find the 2016 Cloud Computing Executive Summary here and a presentation of the results here.  The study’s methodology is based on interviews with respondents who are reporting they are involved with cloud planning and management across their organizations. The sampling frame includes audiences across six IDG Enterprise brands (CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World) representing IT and security decision-makers across eight industries. The survey was fielded online with the objective of understanding organisational adoption, use-cases, and solution needs for cloud computing. A total of 925 respondents were interviewed to complete the study.

Key takeaways include the following:

• The cloud is the new normal for enterprise apps, with 70% of all organizations having at least one app in the cloud today. 75% of enterprises with greater than 1,000 employees have at least one app or platform running in the cloud today, leading all categories of adoption measured in the survey. 90% of all organisations today either have apps running in the cloud are planning to use cloud apps in the next 12 months, or within 1 to 3 years. The cloud has won the enterprise and will continue to see the variety and breadth of apps adopted accelerating in 2017 and beyond.

 

• Business/data analytics and data storage/data management (both 43%) are projected to lead cloud adoption in 2017 and beyond. 22% of organisations surveyed are predicting that business/data analytics will be the leading cloud application area they will migrate to in the next 12 months. 21% are predicting data storage/data management apps are a high priority area for their organisations’ cloud migration plans in 2017.

 

• 28% of organisations’ total IT budgets is dedicated to cloud computing next year. Of that, 45% is allocated to SaaS, 30% to IaaS and 19% to PaaS. The average investment organisations will make in cloud computing next year is $1.62M, with enterprises over 1,000 employees projected to spend $3.03M. The average investment in cloud computing remains constant in organisations with $1.62M invested in 2014, $1.56M in 2015 and $1.62M in 2016. 10% of enterprises with over 1,000 employees are projecting they will spend $10M or more on cloud computing apps and platforms throughout this year.

 

• CIOs, IT architects and IT networking/management control cloud spending in the enterprise. In contrast, CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs are driving small and medium business (SMB) cloud spending this year. The following graphic compares how influential the following groups and individuals are in the cloud computing purchase process.

 

• Just 46% of organisations are using Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) to integrate with databases, messaging systems, portals or storage components. 40% are using them for creating connections to the application layer of their cloud and the underlying IT infrastructures. The following graphic provides insights into how APIs are being used and which teams see the most value in them.

 

• In 18 months the majority of organisations’ IT infrastructures will be entirely cloud-based. IDG found that in 18 months nearly one-third (28%) of all organisations interviewed will be relying on private clouds as part of their IT infrastructure. Just over a fifth (22%) will have public cloud as part of their IT infrastructure, and 10% will be using hybrid. By 2018 the typical IT department will have the minority of their apps and platforms (40%) residing in on-premise systems.

 

• Concerns about where data is stored (43%), cloud security (41%) and vendor lock-in (21%) are the top three challenges organisations face when adopting public cloud technologies. Private and hybrid cloud adoption in organisations is also facing the challenges of cloud security and vendor lock-in. Private and hybrid cloud adoption are being slowed by a lack of the right skill sets to manage and gain the maximum value from cloud investments.