5 Insights from Our Latest Multi-Cloud Research with Forrester Consulting

Jens Koegler Cross Industry ,

Originally available at VMware CIO Exchange by Dave Wolpert

VMware recently commissioned Forrester Consulting to better understand companies’ current and planned multi-cloud strategies, coupled with the role of application modernization in their business transformations. To explore these topics, Forrester conducted an online survey with 616 global IT decision-makers who are responsible for their organizations’ cloud strategy. A few of the key findings include:

Security Dominates the IT Agenda

Respondents’ highest priority over the next 12 months is “implementing a consistent security posture across multiple clouds” (94%). Also dominating the priority list were increasing the speed of application delivery (83%) and replacing legacy code with cloud native code or services (80%).

Most Orgs Plan to Spend More on Cloud, and Many Are Adding More Public Clouds

As a percentage of their total IT budgets, 58% of respondents are planning to spend more or about the same in the next 12 months with public cloud providers. Of those who are increasing public cloud spend, over 40% are also increasing their number of providers. The main reasons of this latter group include the desire for improved resilience (56%), increased flexibility/agility (48%), and compliance/regulations (47%).

Companies Are Shifting to Centralized Platforms

Today, 51% of respondents  report that their organizations are managing their multi-cloud estates with a la carte software tools. Over the next 12 months, however, only 29% of respondents say their organizations plan to do this. Instead, 40% plan to move to centralized methods for multi-cloud management. One reason: only 19% of respondents strongly agreed that they have visibility across clouds to make effective business and technical decisions.

Staffing and Cloud Skills Shortages Remain Challenging

71% percent of respondents are struggling to staff their cloud initiatives appropriately, and 79% of respondents are adjusting their companies’ cloud strategy to prioritize increasing their internal cloud development skills.

Application Modernization Drives Tangible Business Benefits

Respondents that have already modernized some applications report impressive results from their initiatives: 77% experienced increased revenue, 71% experienced increased uptime/reliability, and 56% reported decreased operating costs.

Source: “The Future Of A Secure Multicloud Strategy Will Be Powered By Modern Applications”, May 2022, A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of VMware.

Jens Koegler

Jens Koegler is VMware's Healthcare Industry Director in EMEA. He is helping our healthcare customers develop and run modern applications to drive innovation and ensure better patient care through a digital foundation that includes data center, hybrid cloud, mobile, networking and security technologies. VMware plays a strategic role in the healthcare industry. Its leading innovations in enterprise software help ensure consistent patient care and reduce IT access time for healthcare professionals so they can spend more time with their patients. Jens plays a key role in helping customers understand how new applications, devices, the latest IT technologies and digital transformation are driving innovation in healthcare.