The Shift to Distributed Cloud: The Next Era of Cloud Infrastructure

Drivers and benefits of the distributed cloud: Insights from IT leaders and developers

ClearPath Strategies found that two-thirds of IT decision-makers say their use of distributed cloud services is expected to increase over the next 12 months, with more than one-third saying the benefits of distributed cloud are mission critical to their IT strategy. The study’s researchers found that increasing workload security and improving reliability were the primary drivers of this expectation.

“Digital transformation is an ongoing process, an evolution. It's a mistake to think of it as having a starting point and an endpoint,” said John Garrett, Founder and Partner of ClearPath Strategies. “Our research shows cloud leaders' evolution necessitates new solutions, beyond or in addition to the hyperscalers and traditional cloud solutions that got them where they are today.

These leaders have embraced distributed cloud as a feature of their infrastructure for its superior scalability, performance, and flexibility without sacrificing security — truly a force multiplier for their organizations to meet the demands of modern apps.”

SlashData, which surveys more than 30,000 developers each year, heard a similar response. When it asked developers about their familiarity with distributed cloud, more than half said they were using distributed cloud services in some capacity during their development.

The benefits of distributed cloud

And it’s not simply familiarity and use that’s driving the momentum behind distributed cloud. Tech leaders at companies in which distributed cloud plays a mission-critical role in their IT strategy report meaningful advantages over their peers.

• Increased security was reported by 53% of respondents

• Increased customer satisfaction (48%)

• Increased scalability of resources (45%)

• Reduced costs (34%)

• Improved billing transparency (30%)

Likewise, developers reported the following benefits of distributed cloud:

• Improved user experience by reducing latency (38%)

• Flexibility scaling in different geographies (34%)

• Greater capacity for handling data-intensive applications (33%)

Security and reliability are the primary drivers

In response to an open-ended question of IT decision-makers who say they plan to increase their use of distributed cloud over the upcoming year, 33% cite security and reliability as the primary reasons for their increased use. Of those who see increased security as a benefit of switching to distributed cloud:

• 71% say distributed cloud provides better visibility into security issues locally

• 66% say it provides more granular control over data and access to resources

• 58% say it provides redundancy and failover capabilities across multiple locations 

Additionally, the ClearPath Strategies study found security to be the driving factor behind distributed cloud provider choice — across the entire continuum of providers.

Distributed cloud advantages across geographies

Looking at the use case data across geographies:

• 49% of North American IT decision-makers, 45% of those from the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region, and 40% of participants from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region recognize the potential advantages of distributed cloud for real-time apps, such as gaming and financial transactions

• 57% of tech leaders from North America, 48% from Latin America, 56% from the EMEA region, and 64% from the APAC region acknowledge the benefits of distributed cloud for big data and analytics use cases

Competitive advantages of embracing the distributed cloud 

Organizations and developers that embrace distributed cloud stand to gain competitive advantages through higher performance, better security, and greater scalability. And, ultimately, a better experience for their users.

"An overwhelming majority of cloud developers are interested in distributed cloud computing, driven by its ability to deliver lower latency and better scaling across geographies,” said Liam Dodd, Senior Market Research Analyst at SlashData. “However, we find that many developers are viewing distributed computing through a platform-centric lens, which may leave them unprepared for a distributed world. Despite this, developers indicate interest in distributed cloud vendors, looking for a reliable and scalable backbone that they can use to take full advantage of a more decentralized approach to infrastructure."

Learn more

To get the full picture of IT decision-maker responses, download a copy of the ClearPath Strategies white paper, Distributed Cloud: Technology’s Next Act.

To go deeper into developer responses about their views on the distributed cloud, download a copy of the SlashData report, Developer Perceptions of Distributed Cloud.