The new hot topic in the technology business has been around since — and this is a conservative estimate — the early 2000s.
It’s taken us some time to get where we are today, but these days the cloud permeates all facets of an IT environment — from applications to platforms to infrastructure. A fast look at the leading public cloud support providers — AWS, Microsoft, Google and IBM — shows the competition is fierce among sellers and the decision-making process for technology buyers isn’t for the faint of heart.
Together with the roster of vendor-behemoths pursuing your cloud dollars, it comes as no surprise that the stakes are large. In its Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide, IDC predicts that spending on people cloud services and infrastructure will more than double between now and 2023 with people cloud spending, growing from $229 billion in 2019 to nearly $500 billion in 2023.
IDC on Insider Guru: PeerScape: Practices for using KPIs to drive IT and company performance
IDC reports that software for a service is going to be the most significant category of cloud computing, getting over half of all public cloud spending. Infrastructure for a service (IaaS) will be the second largest category of public cloud spending, followed by platform for a service (PaaS). IaaS spending, comprised of servers and storage devices, are also the fastest growing category of cloud spending,
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What IT leaders think, we requested
But which cloud providers are business IT decision-makers most likely to choose and why? To Discover, IDG, at a series a phone interviews, requested tech experts their ideas on those question:
Are you using a cloud service provider?
If so, which one?
Which are your priorities when it comes to private and public cloud?
What is your principal priority to your own cloud strategy?
Not surprisingly, nearly all those responding within our surveys of IT leaders are using a cloud service. Somewhat surprising perhaps is that Microsoft Azure topped AWS because the cloud service of selection among the 400 tech experts we called. (For more on how Microsoft Azure and AWS compare check out this head-to-head contrast.)
Asked to consider their priorities between public vs. personal cloud, enterprise users ranked private and a combined hybrid approach ahead of a public-only strategy.
No one said cloud deployments are simple. The answers to our query concerning what IT leaders are spending their time focusing on emphasize both the promise and intricacies of moving into the cloud — cost savings (i.e., the guarantee ) and handling a multicloud environment (i.e., the sophistication ) tied as the largest priority.
To get a deeper dive into the present condition of cloud computing, do not miss Eric Knorr’s in-depth evaluation of this nation of the cloud in an Insider Pro exclusive accounts.
