The hybrid cloud is now the dominant IT architecture due to a shift in business needs, according to IBM’s new global study on cloud transformation.
Conducted with Oxford Economics, the study – which included findings from almost 7,200 C-suite executives across 28 industries and 47 countries- indicate that the cloud market has entered the hybrid, multi-cloud era and concerns around vendor lock-in, security, compliance and interoperability remain paramount.
Only 3% of respondents reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021 and nearly 79% of respondents saw vendor lock-in as a significant obstacle to the success of their digital initiatives.
The study found that nearly 79% of respondents said workloads being completely portable with no vendor lock-in is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives, and nearly 69% said vendor lock-in is a significant obstacle to improving business performance in most or all parts of their cloud estate.
Almost three quarters or 70% of respondents in the government and financial services sectors cited industry-related regulatory compliance as an obstacle to the business performance of their cloud estate.
"In the beginning of their cloud journey, many companies dabbled with several different clouds that created complexity and disconnected piece parts, potentially opening them up to major security threats," said Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform.
"Today's finding reiterate that security, governance and compliance tools must run across multiple clouds and be embedded throughout hybrid cloud architectures from the onset for digital transformations to be successful."
