Almost half of organisations will ramp up traditional infrastructure use despite move towards cloud, research finds

‘Cloud boomerang effect’ means more organisations will see increases in traditional infrastructure despite continued move towards public and private cloud use

The majority of organisations plan to increase their use of public and private cloud infrastructure over the next two years but a ‘cloud boomerang effect' means almost half of organisations will increase their use of traditional infrastructure, research by Aptum has found.

Aptum's Cloud Impact Study 2022 found that 78 per cent of IT decision makers plan to increase their organisation's use of public cloud infrastructure while 72 per cent plan on increasing private cloud infrastructure over the next 18 to 24 months.

The survey asked 400 senior IT professionals from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom across industries including financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public education and the commercial sector, about their approach to cloud technology.

It found that 86 per cent of respondents said their organisation has already adopted a hybrid or multi-cloud approach to cloud deployment, with 71 per cent citing innovation and operational efficiency as areas where cloud transformation has had a positive impact.

But despite finding that organisations intend to increase their use of cloud, the study also discovered that some organisations are experiencing a ‘cloud boomerang effect' among specific applications.

Almost half (47 per cent) of respondents said they anticipate an increase in their organisation's use of traditional infrastructure over the next 18-24 months, up from just under a quarter (23 per cent) in 2021.

Meanwhile, only 20 per cent of respondents said they have a holistic cloud computing strategy, with integration of cloud with on-premises systems, data privacy and security challenges cited as the top problems an organisation would face when operating in cloud environments.

"When the pandemic hit, many organisations reacted hastily to move applications to the cloud and neglected some workload considerations that have since become apparent," Chris David, Aptum's senior cloud product leader said.

"So, while organisations see benefits from the cloud, they could have been more successful in their endeavours when the shift first took place if the requirements of each application were carefully evaluated.

"Contrary to popular belief, the cloud boomerang effect isn't simply about moving workloads from cloud platforms back to traditional infrastructure. More accurately, the boomerang is the movement of applications between development and operations teams."