As cloud maturity increases, the role of specialist cloud architects has emerged. In the RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud Survey, as many as 40% of the respondents described themselves as ‘Cloud Architects’, only marginally lower than those who called themselves by a more traditional designation, ‘IT Archtect”
The survey covered 1060 technical professionals in January 2016 to come up with the latest trends in cloud adoption.
According to the findings of the report, enterprise cloud maturity increased. The study classifies the enterprises based on the level of their cloud adoption: cloud watchers (those developing cloud plans), cloud beginners (who have just tested cloud), cloud explorers (those who are exploring newer ways of leveraging cloud) and cloud focused (those who are using cloud heavily). According to the 2016 survey, the share of the cloud focused increased significantly to 25% from just 18% in 2015.
The most important—though not exactly surprising—findings are about cloud adoption models. The survey found that while 89% enterprises use public cloud, 77% are now using private cloud, up from 63% in 2015. This has resulted in 71% enterprises using a hybrid model. As many as 82% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, with 55% having a hybrid cloud strategy.
Among enterprises, the central IT team is typically tasked with assembling this hybrid portfolio of “supported” clouds. The top priority for these central IT teams is to leverage hybrid cloud (29%), which aligns with the predominant strategy.
For the first time since the start of State of the Cloud Survey in 2013, lack of resources/expertise has been cited as the top challenge. Security concerns have topped the challenges all these years. This time, however, 32% of respondents cite lack of resources/expertise as the biggest concern.
