I’m a sucker for a good survey, especially one that goes deep into the concerns of IT practitioners. In the past month, I’ve written about Palo Alto Networks’ 2023 State of Cloud-Native Security Report and Komprise’s 2023 State of Unstructured Data Management Report. I do this because I learn from them, and hope you do too.
A well-fielded survey can reveal truths about the market that you won’t find otherwise. Sometimes you’ll find that it validates assumptions you already hold, but other times a good survey will shine a light on something completely new. NetApp’s just-released 2023 Cloud Complexity Report does both.
IT organizations are asked to do more with less in our current challenging macroeconomic environment. As a result, demands on IT resources are increasing, all while staffing and infrastructure investment must be fought for. In addition, after more than a decade of enterprise adoption, IT organizations are coming to terms with the inherent complexity in deploying to the public cloud. NetApp’s survey reflects this new reality.
Increasing Complexity. And Skepticism.
I like that NetApp includes the word “complexity” in its title because that truly reflects the challenges of managing IT resources across a multi-cloud infrastructure. NetApp’s survey revealed that 98% of global IT executives report that their organizations have been impacted by the increasing complexity of managing data across the cloud. This may seem obvious, but the survey goes a level deeper. This is where some surprises surface.
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Factoring into the complexity facing IT organizations are the usual suspects of increased cybersecurity risks, budget concerns, and staffing issues. Most surprisingly, 44% of survey respondents noted increased skepticism over cloud adoption from leadership. This was coupled with 44% of respondents saying that staff isn’t taking full advantage of business applications in the cloud.
Increasing Tension Around Cloud ROI
I was fortunate to speak to Ronen Schwartz, NetApp’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of NetApp’s Cloud Storage business. I talked to Mr. Schwartz just before the report was released, and I asked him what, in the results, surprised him most.
Ronen Schwartz told me his biggest surprise is that short-term return on investment is now a top-tier concern for IT administrators. This is a shift from recent years, where the top driver revolved around agility and solving complexity. But times have changed.
According to NetApp, 84% of technology executives are already expected to show returns on cloud investment or are under pressure to deliver short-term progress. This is coupled with the 76% of respondents who indicated that their business leaders are “somewhat to extremely skeptical” of seeing cost savings.
NetApp went a layer deeper and showed that while pressure to show RIO is common (33%), it’s highest where business leaders are most skeptical (44%). Adding additional color, the survey indicates that pressure over higher ROI tends to come more from director-level management, who are closer to the day-to-day operations, than from C-level executives.
Cloud Grows, Despite Skepticism
While management is increasingly skeptical about cloud adoption and is demanding a faster ROI, cloud adoption continues to grow. The agility and flexibility the public cloud offers is compelling, especially compared to CapEx-driven on-prem infrastructure. When looking at why organizations deploy to the cloud in 2023, NetApp’s survey yielded several expected answers but also one that surprised me.
