Nutanix a leader in hybrid multi-cloud computing, has announced the findings of its sixth global Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption. This year’s ECI report revealed
The use of hybrid multi-cloud models is forecasted to double over the next one to three years as IT decision-makers are facing new pressures to modernise IT infrastructures because of drivers like AI, security, and sustainability. This is according to the Nutanix sixth global Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey released recently.
As organisations continue to grapple with the complexities of moving applications and data across environments, the ECI report highlighted the growing importance of hybrid multicloud infrastructure. The report found that security and innovation were the top drivers for moving applications from one environment to another over the past year. As AI takes centre stage for businesses, ECI respondents identified increasing investments to support AI strategy as their #1 priority, followed closely by investment in IT modernisation.
“Whether it be because of AI, sustainability, or security imperatives, IT organisations are facing ever-increasing pressure to modernise their IT infrastructure quickly,” said Lee Caswell, SVP, Product and Solutions Marketing at Nutanix.
“80% of ECI respondents are planning to invest in IT modernisation, with 85% planning to increase their investments specifically to support AI. What this year’s ECI reveals is that organisations need to support the technologies of tomorrow by future-proofing their IT infrastructure today. Hybrid multicloud continues to emerge as the infrastructure standard of choice because of the flexibility it provides to support traditional VM and modern containerised applications and movement between clouds and on-prem.” Lee added.
The report further found that 90% of ECI respondents are taking a "cloud smart" approach to their infrastructure strategy – leveraging the best environment (e.g., data centre, public cloud, edge) for each of their applications. Given the pervasiveness of this approach, it is no wonder that hybrid and multicloud environments have become the de facto infrastructure standard. Furthermore, over 80% of organisations believe hybrid IT environments are most beneficial to their ability to manage applications and data. Most importantly, this is now becoming an executive priority, with nearly half of respondents noting that implementing hybrid IT is a top priority for their CIO.
Additionally, ransomware and malware attacks will remain existential threats to modern enterprises, with the cat-and-mouse game between malicious actors and enterprise security professionals set to continue throughout 2024. Yet, data protection and recovery remain a challenge, as 71% of ECI respondents who experienced a ransomware attack reported taking days or even weeks to restore full operations. To help address this, 78% of organisations say they plan to increase investments in ransomware protection solutions throughout this year.
The report also found out that enterprise workloads – including their applications and data – often find their way into the IT environment which best suits their needs, whether that environment is an on-premises data centre, the public cloud, a smaller edge location, or a mix of all three. 88% of ECI respondents also agreed that sustainability is a priority for their organisation. However, unlike in the previous report where action was limited, many organisations indicate they are already taking active steps to implement sustainability initiatives, with the most common being modernising IT infrastructure.
ECI respondents also identified increased investment to support AI strategy as their top priority, followed closely by investment in IT modernisation. Furthermore, 37% of ECI respondents indicate running AI applications on their current IT infrastructure will be a "significant" challenge. In order to mitigate and overcome this challenge, organisations are prioritising IT modernisation and edge infrastructure deployments, which can facilitate faster processing and access to data. This, in turn, can help improve their ability to link data from multiple environments to give better visibility into where data resides across their sprawling ecosystems. BY NIXON KANALI, Africa Business Communities
