The majority of cloud migrations are driven by the three Bs – bosses, board members and business leaders, as technology experts become marginalized, says a new report. However, the report also indicated most projects end up being led by a technology-savvy third party.
Hosting vendor Rackspace’s new ‘Anatomy of a Cloud Migration’ study found that CEOs, directors and other business leaders are behind 61% of cloud migrations, rather than IT experts. Perhaps surprisingly, 37% of these laymen and laywomen see their cloud migration projects right through to completion, they told the study.
The report, which compiled feedback from a survey of 500 UK IT and business decision-makers, also revealed what’s in the cloud, why it’s there and how much IT has been moved to the cloud already. There was some good news for the technology expert, as the report also indicates that one of the biggest lessons learned was that cloud migration is not a good experience and that the majority of companies end up consulting a third-party supplier. However, in the end, nine out of ten organisations were able to report that their business goals were met, albeit only ‘to some extent’. The report was compiled for Rackspace by Vanson Bourne.
Among the 500 companies quizzed, an average of 43% of the IT estate is now in the cloud. Cost cutting was the main motive in 61% of cases.
Surprisingly, 29% of respondents said they migrated their business-critical applications first, rather than embark on a painful learning curve with a less important application. The report did not cross reference this figure with the figures for migrations led by CIOs. However, 69% of the survey said they learned lessons from their migration that will affect future projects, which almost matches the 71% of people who didn’t make a mission critical application their pilot migration project.
Other hoped-for outcomes nominated by the survey group were improvements in resilience (in 50% of cases), security (38%), agility (38%) and stabilising platforms and applications (37%).
A move to the cloud is no longer an exclusive function of the IT department, concluded Darren Norfolk, UK MD of Rackspace. “Whether business leaders understand the practicalities of a cloud migration project or not, there appears to be broad acceptance that they can do it,” he said.