Multicloud Strategies Must Evolve to Meet the Needs of Global IT Leaders
Are your applications and workloads as globally distributed as the customers and employees who use them? Can you meet data sovereignty requirements if you still rely on a geographically static, centralized cloud platform? Forrester posed questions like these, and many others, to hundreds of IT leaders from around the world in their latest study, commissioned by Akamai, called The Great Cloud Reset.
The centralized cloud of the past cannot support how applications are being built now and will be built in the future.
An evolving cloud for evolving needs
For this study, Forrester Consulting asked more than 400 global IT leaders how their multicloud strategies are evolving to meet the needs of a more widely distributed and mobile society, and the top takeaway was clear: The centralized cloud of the past cannot support how applications are being built now and will be built in the future.
We introduced The Great Cloud Reset in a recent webinar, at which I was joined by Akamai CTO Andy Champagne and guest analyst Lee Sustar from Forrester Consulting. Andy and Lee gave their analyses of the statistics and took questions from attendees.
The main takeaway from the study, Andy said, was that companies will need to develop distributed applications that run across multiple clouds, from core to edge, close to devices and end users, in order to stay competitive now and moving forward.
The shift to distributed applications and workloads
Data from the study shows there is already a shift among IT leaders worldwide to distributed applications and workloads to meet technical, cost, and regulatory challenges. Highlights from the report include:
88% of IT leaders have six or more workloads that need to run in multiple regions, and 66% have six or more workloads that need to run in multiple jurisdictions
72% say they’re running six or more workloads at the edge
65% say networks that support workloads across cloud and edge environments are key to multicloud optimization
41% struggle to find a cloud provider to meet data residency requirements
Andy noted that when workloads and applications are built and deployed close to end users and devices, they perform better, with near-zero latency, and meet data localization requirements. To achieve this, he said, companies will need to architect distributed cloud platforms that allow for portability and flexible deployment, which helps avoid vendor lock-in and can reduce cloud costs.
IT leaders are addressing complexity by ensuring that workloads are aligned with the right clouds for optimal performance and user experience.
Aligning workloads with clouds
Nearly half the IT leaders — 46% — say they are dealing with inefficiencies because of the complexity inherent in a multicloud strategy, which includes the number of components involved. For example, a company can have more than a thousand APIs and massive amounts of data that must be integrated, scaled, maintained, and managed.
In order to mitigate this complexity, the report reveals that IT leaders are addressing complexity by ensuring that workloads are aligned with the right clouds for optimal performance and user experience. Respondents indicated that focusing on workload placement strategies, as well as engaging partners that can meet their flexible cloud computing requirements, would yield positive results.
68% of respondents expect increased revenue
68% expect improved performance
65% expect cost optimization
64% expect improved user experiences
Distributing apps to overcome complexity
When Forrester asked respondents to identify their biggest challenge today, 51% cited the complexity inherent in a multicloud strategy, while 44% cited the costs associated with sprawl, the data egress charges, and unpredictable pricing. Additionally, high latency was a top concern across almost all cloud provider use cases.
The primary solution for these companies is investing in a cloud-native future by building and deploying applications across multiple clouds at the core and the edge. In fact, 86% said they are already using flexible architecture that includes the edge, and 65% are seeking cloud providers that support workloads across a range of cloud and edge environments.
The study concludes that multicloud maturity will require choosing the right cloud for the right workload and investing in flexible architecture and partners to support this vision. That’s why 76% of respondents say they must align the right workload to the right cloud to optimize their multicloud strategies and overcome their latency and localization concerns. They believe that this approach will lead to business benefits and better customer experiences.
Final takeaways from the data
During the webinar, Lee pointed out that demand is spiking for both core and edge capabilities. Because latency concerns increase as workloads spread out, companies are highlighting the need for a distributed, cloud-to-edge architecture.
A distributed network can also help address the growing regulatory requirements for data localization, said Lee. And Andy added that distributing applications and workloads so that they are close to end users and devices will also optimize user and employee experiences.
And when he was asked for his top recommendation based on the study results, Lee was succinct: Accelerate cloud-native adoption.
Learn more
Download a copy of The Great Cloud Reset today to see the full results. And watch a recording of our webinar with Forrester Principal Analyst Lee Sustar and Akamai CTO Andy Champagne for an analysis of the IT leaders’ responses.
