Most firms don’t have a ‘full’ cloud strategy

Over half (57 percent) of organisations do not have a full cloud strategy. While the common assumption is that the cloud represents reduced costs and better application performance, many organisations will ultimately fail to realise those benefits, according to research.

VMTurbo, the application performance control firm, conducted the research and says a multi-cloud approach, where businesses operate a number of separate private and public clouds, is an “essential precursor” to a true hybrid cloud – now seen as the ultimate cloud goal in many quarters.

Yet in the survey of 1,368 organisations, 57 percent had no multi-cloud strategy at all. Similarly, 35 percent had no private cloud strategy, and 28 percent had no public cloud strategy.

“A lack of cloud strategy doesn’t mean an organisation has studied and rejected the idea of the cloud, it means it has given adoption little or no thought at all,” said Charles Crouchman, CTO of VMTurbo. “As organisations make the journey from on-premise IT to public and private clouds, and finally to multi- and hybrid clouds, it’s essential that they address this.”

He said: “Having a cloud strategy means understanding the precise costs and challenges that the cloud will introduce, knowing how to make the cloud approach work for you, and choosing technologies that will supplement cloud adoption.”

Without a full strategy, said Crouchman, organisations will be “condemning” themselves to higher than expected costs, and a cloud that never performs to its full potential.

SMEs in particular were shown to massively underestimate the costs of cloud implementation. While SMEs planning private cloud builds gave an average estimated budget of $148,605, SMEs that have already completed builds revealed an average cost of $898,508: six times the estimate.

Not quick

Adopting the cloud is not a quick, simple process. Even for those organisations with a cloud strategy, the majority (60 percent) take over a year to plan and build their multi-cloud infrastructure, with six percent taking over three years.

Private and public cloud adoption is also relatively lengthy, with 66 percent of private cloud builds, and 51 percent of public cloud migrations, taking over a year.

@AntonySavvas