RESEARCH REPORT PUBLISHED JANUARY 2020 | $499

NE X T

The State of
Cloud Computing
Responses to the recently conducted State of Cloud
Computing Survey reveal incremental shifts in how
organizations are planning their cloud spending for
the next two years. However, a closer examination
shows the drastic differences in the needs that are
driving how companies expect to spend.
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Table of Contents
3 About the Author Figure 4: Percent of IT Budget Dedicated to Figure 19: Managing
 and Automating Workloads
Cloud in Cloud Environment
4 Executive Summary
Figure 5: IaaS
 Services Currently in Use or Figure 20: P
ublic IaaS Providers in Use
5 Research Synopsis
Considered for Use
Figure 21: SLA Agreements with Cloud
6 Understanding the Inevitability of the Cloud
Figure 6: Percentage of IT Services Delivered Providers
6 Cloud Computing’s 24-Month Outlook from IaaS
Figure 22: Performance Challenges of Cloud-
9 Why Organizations Plan to Spend More Figure 7: Top Benefits of IaaS Based Apps
on SaaS
Figure 8: Top IaaS Risks Figure 23: State of Private Cloud Adoption
13 The Litmus Test for Cloud ROI
Figure 9: Consideration of Cost for IaaS Figure 24: Moving Apps from Private Cloud to
13 An Academic Assessment of SaaS Reach Project Public Cloud Services
14 How Use Case Matters in SaaS Adoption Figure 10: P
 ercentage of Applications Delivered Figure 25: Public vs. Private Cloud-Based
Through SaaS Model Next Year Workloads
14 Vendor Lock-in Concerns
Figure 11: Primary Decision-Maker for SaaS Figure 26: Private Cloud Platforms
15 Regulatory Matters Still Limit Cloud Usage
Applications
for Some Figure 27: Success of Cloud Meeting IT Goals
Figure 12: Responsibility for Costs of SaaS
15 Desire for Freedom to Move Among Vendors Figure 28: Percentage of Applications Delivered
Figure 13: Greatest Benefits of SaaS Through SaaS Model in 2019
3 0 Appendix
Figure 14: Significant Downsides of SaaS Figure 29: Role of Shadow IT
Figure 15: Financial Factors Affecting IaaS Figure 30: Tech Used to Manage SaaS
Figures
Decisions
Figure 31: Respondent Job Title
F igure 1: Future Business Services Delivered
Figure 16: Strategies to Monitor Costs of IaaS
from Cloud Figure 32: Respondent Company Size
Figure 17: Plans for Physical Data Centers
F igure 2: Cloud Budget Allocation Figure 33: Respondent Company Revenue
RESEARCH REPORT Figure 18: Measuring Benefits of Using IaaS
F igure 3: Utilizing IaaS Figure 34 : Respondent Industry

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Author

Joao-Pierre S. Ruth
Senior Writer, InformationWeek
Joao-Pierre S. Ruth has spent his career immersed in business and technology journalism,
first covering local industries in New Jersey; later as the New York editor for Xconomy, delving
into the city’s tech startup community; and then as a freelancer for such outlets as TheStreet,
Investopedia, and Street Fight. Joao-Pierre earned his bachelor’s in English from Rutgers
University. Follow him on Twitter: @jpruth.

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Executive Summary
At first blush, the responses to InformationWeek’s State of Cloud Computing Survey reveal incremental shifts compared with 2018 in
terms of how organizations are planning their cloud spending for the coming two years. But a closer examination shows the drastic
differences in the needs that are driving how companies expect to invest on this front.

• While the amount of work being handled in the cloud is expected to stay virtually level for the next two years, there has been a shift
in which types of clouds are getting investment, with a greater share being allocated to software-as-a-service (SaaS).
• Public infrastructure-as-a-service providers shape up as a preferred alternative to private and hybrid clouds.
• Those companies committed to SaaS may be “really” committed, with one executive saying that 95% of his company’s cloud
budget is going to SaaS applications.
• Even when there is a corporate desire to move more work to the cloud, industry regulations (such as those in banking and
healthcare) provide barriers to such an initiative.

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Research Synopsis
Survey Name: InformationWeek State of Cloud Computing Survey
Survey Date: August 2019; report published January 2020
Primary Region: North America
Respondent Base: 150 cloud computing users. The margin of error for the total respondent base (N=150) is +/-7.9 percentage
points.
Methodology: InformationWeek surveyed business technology decision-makers at North American companies on cloud computing
usage and optimization strategies. The survey was conducted online, and respondents were recruited via an emailed invitation
containing an embedded link to the survey. The invitation was sent to a select group of Informa’s audience of IT professionals. Informa
is the parent company of InformationWeek. More than four out of 10 respondents held IT management titles such as CIO, CTO, VP
of IT, IT manager, or IT director. Thirty percent of respondents were from large companies with 1,000 or more employees. Informa
was responsible for all programming and data analysis. These procedures were carried out in strict accordance with standard market
research practices.

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Understanding the Inevitability Figure 1
of the Cloud Future Business Services Delivered from Cloud
Looking ahead 24 months, what percentage of your IT and business services do you predict
The questions surrounding cloud comput- will be delivered from the cloud?
ing are no longer about “if” or even “when.”
Today, enterprise IT teams have committed
to cloud strategies, and the key questions 7%
9% 75% or more
are along the lines of “what goes to the 24% 23%
cloud next?” and “how much faster.?” 50% to 74% 18%
17%
25% to 49%
The State of Cloud Computing report by 10% to 24%
the InformationWeek team addresses those 24%
25% 25% Under 10%
latter questions, as well as taking a look 28%
at the challenges and concerns that enter-
prise IT managers still have regarding their
cloud strategies. You will find that while
2019 2018
most organizations are well into the imple- Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

mentation of cloud concepts, further ex-

pansion often is in incremental measures.
Cloud Computing’s 24-Month Outlook respondents in 2019 say they expect 75%
Plus, some concerns remain in the areas of ven- The metrics from the first chart, which or more of their IT and business services
dor lock-in, security, and regulatory mandates. asked respondents how much of their to be delivered via the cloud in two years.
companies’ IT and business services will That’s up from 23% when we asked re-
A note for readers: While past State of Cloud be delivered from the cloud in 24 months, spondents the same question in 2018. The
reports have focused on Infrastructure-as-a- show only 1- to 3-point changes in how next bracket down — respondents who ex-
Service (IaaS), in this year’s report we have companies forecast this compared with pect their companies to get 50% to 74% of
added a number of questions about enterprise responses from 2018 (Figure 1). their IT services delivered from the cloud —
use of software-as-a-service (SaaS), given the also saw a nominal increase, from 24% of
RESEARCH REPORT growing corporate reliance on SaaS. The chart shows that overall, 24% of the respondents in 2018 to 25% in 2019.

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PREVIOUS NEXT These gains seem to come from businesses Figure 2

moving from the shallower end of the pool
to a deeper commitment to cloud delivery. Cloud Budget Allocation
In 2019, how will your company’s cloud budget be split between the following services?
Respondents who expect to get 25% to 49%
2019 2018
of their IT and business services from the
Software as a service (SaaS)
cloud in 2019 fell to 25%, down from 28% in 42%
39%
2018. The next category — 10% to 24% of Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)
27%
cloud-delivered IT services — shrank by just 33%
Platform as a service (PaaS)
1 point to 17% of respondents. 19%
22%
Other “as-a-service” models
27%
All told, this can be taken as a sign that 20%
organizations plan to shift more of their Note: Average percentages; total does not equal 100%
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

service needs to cloud-based resources

in the coming two years. The shift is grad-
ual, though, rather than a sea change. This Figure 3
might be attributable to gradual increases
in their demand for or comfort with servi- Utilizing IaaS
How is your organization utilizing IaaS?
ces from the cloud.
We use a public IaaS provider 
37%
The differences stand out regarding how
We are considering public or private IaaS
and why these companies plan to allo- 23%
cate their budgets. SaaS offerings gained We have no plans to use IaaS
23%
ground with respondents, while infrastruc-
We have implemented a private cloud
ture-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a- 22%
service (PaaS) slipped. For 2019, respon- We run a hybrid cloud infrastructure, where a single application runs in multiple clouds
dents indicated SaaS would get the lion’s 21%

share of the cloud budget, at 42%, com- Note: Multiple responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018
pared with 39% the prior year (Figure 2).
RESEARCH REPORT Meanwhile, IaaS saw budget expectations

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PREVIOUS NEXT shrink to 27% from 33% among respon- Figure 4

dents. Other service models, which include
backup-as-a-service and database-as-a- Percent of IT Budget Dedicated to Cloud
service, jumped to 27% from 20% in 2018. In 2019, what percentage of your company’s IT operations budget will be allocated toward cloud/IaaS?
1%

A new question for 2019 asked how organi-

zations utilize IaaS, with multiple responses
8% 11% 75% or more 11% 10%
allowed. For 37% of respondents, public
IaaS providers emerged as the way to go 17% 50% to 74%
18% 21%
(Figure 3). A private cloud is the path of 25% to 49%
choice for 22% of respondents, and 23% 30%
10% to 24%
say they’re considering either private or
28% Under 10%
public IaaS. A hybrid cloud approach to in- 18%
27%
frastructure, where a single application op- None
erates across multiple clouds, is preferred
by 21% of respondents. This shows that
2019 2018
different approaches are being explored by Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018
organizations, including combining cloud
resources to create the right fit for their in-
frastructure needs.
year to 11% in 2019 (Figure 4). A more saw the greatest increases in 2019. This
The portion of IT budgets expected to be dramatic change was seen in the percent- trend might be attributed to organiza-
dedicated to the cloud and IaaS seems age of organizations planning to spend 25% tions already completing the “heavy lifting”
to be diminishing among respondents — to 49% of their budgets on the cloud; while investment of transitioning to the cloud,
but there may be a good reason for that. 27% of respondents expected to spend with savings starting to be realized. It’s also
A minor increase (statistically flat) was that much last year, the number dropped possible that some organizations slowed
seen among organizations planning to to 18% in 2019. IT budgets with minimal their investment in the cloud after exploring
spend 75% or more of their IT budgets on — 1% to 9% — allocations for the cloud their options and deciding to go another
RESEARCH REPORT the cloud, from 10% of respondents last or organizations with no allocations at all route.

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Figure 6

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Percentage of IT Services
IaaS Services Currently in Use or Considered for Use Delivered from IaaS
Which IaaS technologies and services are in use or under consideration by your organization today? Looking ahead to 2020, what percentage
of your IT services do you predict will be
2019 2018
Virtual machines delivered from IaaS?
66%
78%
Managed database services
47%
48% 10% 14%
Containers
38% 12%
42%
“Serverless” functions-as-a-service 22%
37%
29%
Managed security services 23%
35%
N/A 19%
Higher-level cloud services
31%
21%
Object storage
30%
33% 2019
Block storage
30%
31%
Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018 8% 13%

30% 22%
Why Organizations Plan to Spend It may sound self-evident, but the managing
More on SaaS partner of a managed service provider says
The reasons for the increase in anticipated he expected more than 75% of his business 27%
spending on SaaS while IaaS and PaaS saw services would come from the cloud going
some pullback vary greatly from organization forward. How the firm plans to invest in the
2018
to organization, with the demands of the busi- cloud is almost entirely focused on SaaS,
ness and expectations for return on invest- with 95% of the planned budget earmarked 75% or more 10% to 24%
ment steering their cloud spending. for that segment, 5% budgeted for IaaS, and 50% to 74% Under 10%
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25% to 49% None

50 Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019

and 200 in January 2018
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PREVIOUS NEXT Figure 7 Figure 8

Top Benefits of IaaS Top IaaS Risks

What are the top three benefits your organization When thinking about risks related to IaaS, what are your top three concerns?
hopes to realize by using IaaS?
2019 2018
Security defects in the technology itself
2019 2018 48%
(overall rank) (overall rank) 55%
Unauthorized access to or leak of our proprietary information
Greater scalability 1 1 43%
33%
Higher performance 2 2 Unauthorized access to or leak of our customers’ information
38%
35%
Cost savings 3 3 Business viability of provider; risk company will fail
26%
Improved business 26%
continuity 4 5 Vendor lock-in
24%
28%
Faster time to market 5 4 Business continuity/disaster recovery adiness of cloud system
22%
Better/faster access to 25%
6 6 Difficulty integrating cloud data with our internal systems
technology resources 17%
23%
Improved security 7 9 Features and general maturity of technology
16%
18%
Increased IT staff Degraded application/system performance
efficiency 8 7 15%
19%
Improved employee Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
9 11 Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018
productivity

Expanded geographic
10 8
reach

Shift of cost allocation

11 10
from CapEx to OpEx

Note: Rank is based on a weighted score. Items ranked first are valued higher than
subsequent items, and the score is based on the sum of all weighted counts.
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019
and 200 in January 2018

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Consideration of Cost for IaaS Project Percentage of Applications

How heavily does cost factor into a decision to go ahead with an IaaS project at your organization? Delivered Through SaaS
3% 2% 2% Model Next Year
Looking ahead to 2020, what percentage of
your applications do you expect to have
delivered through a SaaS model?
8% It’s the primary 15%
18%
thing we consider

It’s the most important

factor among several
considerations 51% 6%
26% 30% 18%
45% It’s important, but
other factors may 14%
be more important

It’s a minor factor

21%
19%
Don’t know
2019 2018
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018
22%

none toward PaaS or other service models. brainer for us to get rid of the cost of the
75% or more 10% to 24%
“We have our infrastructure built out in a data co-location facility,” he says. Owning, main-
center co-location facility, and it just wasn’t taining, and refreshing that equipment — 50% to 74% Under 10%
agile enough,” that respondent says. along with round-the-clock operational re- 25% to 49% None
sponsibility for customers — made it more
Most of the company’s new tools and solu- cost-effective to migrate to SaaS platforms, Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

tions were added as SaaS offerings, he says. he adds. “We were able to provide them
The solutions the company used to serve with much greater resiliency, better secu-
its customers moved from on-premises to rity, and do it without the cost of owning a
RESEARCH REPORT SaaS, the respondent adds. “It was a no- co-location cage.”

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PREVIOUS NEXT Figure 11 Figure 12

Primary Decision-Maker for SaaS Applications Responsibility for Costs

Who in your organization are the primary decision-makers in selecting or implementing of SaaS
SaaS applications? Which group typically carries the costs
Senior IT management associated with SaaS?
58%
IT and business unit management as a team
24%
Departmental/Business unit management 7%
22%
Middle IT management
19%
38%
Senior non-IT management
14% 29%
Don’t know
6%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

26%

Figure 13

Greatest Benefits of SaaS Central IT

What are the greatest benefits that you see in SaaS? Business units/departments
Ease of management A mix of central IT and business units/departments
64%
Lower cost Don't know
42%
Offloading patches/updates to vendors Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019
39%
Security
36%
Choice of providers
32%
Global availability
27%
Happier end users/departments
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24%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 14
PREVIOUS NEXT The Litmus Test for Cloud ROI
Cost is a tertiary factor for this respondent,
Significant Downsides of SaaS with governance and security taking top
What are the most significant downsides to SaaS?
priority. “If we can provide those services
High seat license costs in the cloud at a much better cost of own-
53%
Vendor lock-in ership than building ourselves, then that’s
50% the path,” he says. “For the ease of total
Lack of customization
40% cost of ownership, it’s much more efficient
Weak security to operate in the cloud.” The respondent
26%
Limited data management/analytics capability says he wants to explore a multicloud strat-
23% egy going forward for applications that are
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019 better suited to run with different providers,
whether Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google
Cloud Platform. “Can we effectively move
Keeping the software and technical resources tions to a SaaS provider with nothing on- workloads between those three cloud pro-
updated for an on-premises contact center premises anymore, he says, with infra- viders?” he asks. “That piece still takes a
solution at a 24-hour operations center was structure support moved to Amazon Web fair amount of engineering work to make
an ongoing hassle, the respondent says, Services (AWS). Those infrastructure needs happen.”
which was alleviated through SaaS. “That can vary by customer, leading to different
was the first application we picked up and demands in terms of safeguarding data. An Academic Assessment of SaaS
moved to the cloud,” he says. “Voice was just “Some of our customers are in life sciences Reach
another application on the network and prob- or financial services and have compliance Understanding how far-reaching SaaS is
ably the easiest to move. We moved the con- requirements or security concerns,” the within organizations has been a focus for
tact center along with it. It was much easier respondent says. Using AWS meets those Cristina M. Recchia, an alum of IBM, Sun
to own and operate going forward.” security compliance needs, he adds, set- Microsystems, and Salesforce. She has
ting those types of customers at ease rather been examining the effect of SaaS on ob-
The company’s SaaS-first approach led than trying to build compliant infrastructure jective business performance as a doctoral
to migrating nearly all business applica- from scratch. candidate and adjunct faculty instructor for
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PREVIOUS NEXT information systems management at the Even without advanced call center solu- ed to move resources four years ago to an
Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne tions, advanced marketing, or connectivity Microsoft Office 365 environment, leveraging
State University. “There’s tons of research to social media, such legacy systems can Azure. As new features become available,
on technology change and issues associ- remain cornerstones of such organizations. the organization assesses their potential use.
ated with inertia that prevent SaaS from “It’s inertia,” Recchia says. “They can’t His organization plans to see more than 75%
penetrating at the level it could,” she says. move in any other direction and they’re of its business services and IT go through the
afraid. It’s the way that 50 people support cloud, with half of that budget going toward
The advantages of SaaS she cites include their families.” The decision to migrate to SaaS. If the organization cannot find what it
access to leading-edge technology and SaaS can take a mandate from a senior needs in Office 365, he says, it would turn to
capability without reliance on in-house IT executive to put into action, she says, be- another hosted SaaS offering for a solution.
personnel to download and optimize the cause the incumbents within IT may push “It would only be under the most trying cir-
software. “The issue this causes within or- back out of self-preservation. cumstances that we would deploy something
ganizations is a threat to the IT team, more on-premises,” he says.
so than any other technology,” Recchia says. How Use Case Matters in SaaS
With SaaS aimed at business users, ven- Adoption There is some PaaS and IaaS use by the or-
dors might reach out directly to sales and Naturally the core competency of the or- ganization, according to the respondent, with
marketing executives, human resources, ganization, Recchia says, can determine hosted applications with Microsoft managing
or finance rather than bring IT into the loop. the type of usefulness they might find in the SQL server aspect of that. “We take care
“They’re saying, ‘Here’s a better way to SaaS or other cloud services. “If you’re a of the other servers,” he says.
manage your business,’” she says. manufacturer, you’re not necessarily going
to find SaaS that solves your core compe- One area of concern, according to the re-
The reluctance of some organizations to em- tency.” Research may show, however, that spondent, is vendor lock-in, where cloud
brace SaaS, despite what may be clear advan- ancillary services, such as procurement services are structured to compel organi-
tages, can run deep, Recchia says, based on and expense management, should be done zations to stick with one provider despite
their reliance and history with legacy systems. through a SaaS tool, she says. the flexibility that cloud computing offers.
“You’ve got companies building and relying on “Microsoft made some announcements
30-year-old mainframes and saying, ‘This is the Vendor Lock-in Concerns in the PowerApps world,” he says, citing
best thing for our business,’” she says. “How A survey respondent who is the director of IT planned price increases on data drawn
RESEARCH REPORT could that possibly be?” for a not-for-profit says his organization start- from sources outside of Office 365. “When

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PREVIOUS NEXT they make decisions like that, you’re at the For now, the processing of claims works changes, he says, is desirable for the fu-
mercy of the vendor.” to the organization’s satisfaction, even with ture, whether it is because of pricing or ac-
limited use of the cloud, Montgomery says. cess to different resources. “If you make
Regulatory Matters Still Limit Cloud “There’s not a big business case to migrate a decision to migrate your workloads to a
Usage for Some to the cloud.” In a way, continued adher- provider and it becomes too painful or too
There can be use cases where it is just not ence to HIPAA has brought the organiza- much of a project to later move off, is that a
easy to migrate to cloud-based services. tion to a place of equilibrium on its compute good business decision?” he asks.
That was the case for one survey respon- needs. “We’ve already got all the capital
dent who weighs in at a lower bracket, in expenditures for the hardware; we’ve got Montgomery describes himself as pro-
the 10% to 24% range for business services the compliance,” he says. “Short of a ma- cloud, given its future potential with the ar-
expected to be delivered through the cloud jor upgrade, there’s not really a case to mi- gument to use it becoming more compel-
in the coming 24 months. grate for processing medical claims.” ling — as long as there is a solid business
case. “The capacity on demand, being able
Todd Montgomery, a consultant with DCS, His organization is looking at which next to spin up clusters, do a job, turn it off, and
says his company processes Medicare generation of technology it might explore, not have to pay for all of it is phenomenal,”
claims in Texas, which is a regulated space including microservices and containers. he says. “In my mind, the public cloud has
under the Health Insurance Portability and “When we get to that stage, which is some a fantastic future.”
Accountability Act (HIPAA). “All of that work ways off, that might be a good use case for
takes place in-house in a private data cen- a public cloud,” Montgomery says. “We’d
ter,” he says. have to redo all the processing compo-
nents anyway.”
Despite being under such mandates, Mont-
gomery says there are some cloud services Desire for Freedom to Move Among
such as Office 365, e-mail, and other day- Vendors
to-day business elements that can be out- Though the organization’s cloud usage is
sourced to Microsoft Azure. “We don’t have limited, flexibility versus vendor lock-in re-
to maintain the server equipment, patching, mains a consideration, Montgomery says.
and all of that,” he says. Having to lay out an exit strategy or make
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Appendix
Figure 15

Financial Factors Affecting IaaS Decisions

Which financial factors have the greatest impact on decisions regarding IaaS services at your
organization?
2019 2018
Operational expenses for lifetime of project
46%
53%
Initial capital expenses
37%
45%
Cost or cost of staff time to implement or manage
25%
22%
Network or systems management costs or savings
23%
16%
Reduced or increased staffing requirements
23%
21%
Future capital expenses
19%
30%
Time savings for business unit employees or IT staff
19%
20%
Opportunity for increased business capabilities and revenue
19%
21%
Provisioning costs or savings
15%
20%
Utility costs or savings
15%
8%
Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

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Figure 16

Strategies to Monitor Costs of IaaS

What strategies does your organization use or plan to use to monitor or estimate costs of IaaS?
2019 2018
Tracking monthly billing or usage reports
60%
64%
Real-time tracking
33%
38%
In-house network operations center monitoring
27%
30%
Third-party software
21%
21%
Spending limit set with provider
21%
34%
SMS or other types of alerts
13%
18%
None
12%
3%
Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

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Figure 17

Plans for Physical Data Centers

What is your organization’s plan for its physical data center(s) vs. IaaS?

We’ve already shut down our data centers

We’ve greatly reduced the number/size of data centers

11% 16%
We have shifted a limited number of functions to the cloud

20% We’re sticking with our data centers as our primary platform

24% Don’t know

29%

Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 18

Measuring Benefits of Using IaaS

For each of the following categories, please indicate the degree to which your organization has
experienced actual benefit by using IaaS.

Benefited Benefited Benefited Does not

greatly somewhat minimally No benefit apply

Improved performance 26% 35% 13% 9% 17%

Greater scalability 29% 33% 14% 7% 17%

Better/faster access to technology resources 31% 26% 15% 10% 18%

Expanded geographic reach 21% 27% 16% 13% 23%

Improved business continuity 29% 25% 21% 8% 17%

Shift of cost allocation from capex to opex 16% 28% 18% 14% 24%

Increased IT staff efficiency 20% 29% 21% 12% 18%

Improved employee productivity 16% 34% 16% 15% 19%

Cost savings 18% 29% 21% 15% 17%

Base: 142 respondents in 2019 and 155 in 2018 who use public IaaS, private cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 19

Managing and Automating Workloads in Cloud Environment

How are you managing, automating, and orchestrating workloads in your cloud environment?
2019 2018
Manually within IaaS provider console
56%
54%
IaaS provider services
38%
36%
Third-party configuration management software
34%
36%
Container management systems
19%
16%
Platform-as-a-service software
16%
12%
Third-party cloud management services
7%
19%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 142 respondents in 2019 and 155 in 2018 who use public IaaS, private cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 20

Public IaaS Providers in Use

Which public IaaS providers do you use?
2019 2018
Amazon Web Services
61%
62%
Microsoft Azure
54%
48%
Google Cloud
29%
29%
IBM SoftLayer
13%
14%
Oracle Cloud
7%
10%
Alibaba Cloud
6%
5%
Other
9%
7%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 142 respondents in 2019 and 155 in 2018 who use public IaaS, private cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 21

SLA Agreements with Cloud Providers

How do you create your SLA agreements with cloud providers?
1% 2%

10% Review their general

agreement, then 16%
negotiate terms

46% Accept their terms

as is 59%
43% 23%
Provide them with
a template to which
they must conform

Other

2019 2018
Base: 142 respondents in 2019 and 155 in 2018 who use public IaaS, private cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 22

Performance Challenges of Cloud-Based Apps

What are the biggest challenges for performance of cloud-based applications?
2019 2018
Actual application/system design of provider’s application
50%
54%
Our own Internet bandwidth/connectivity
46%
49%
Scalability of provider application
30%
35%
Cloud vendors’ Internet connectivity
25%
35%
Storage limitations
27%
19%
Note: Maximum of three responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

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Figure 23

State of Private Cloud Adoption

Which best describes your state of private cloud adoption? 
2019 2018
Have a private cloud in production for most or all of our apps
28%
31%
Have a private cloud in production for some of our apps 
25%
33%
Considered and decided against it
14%
13%
Piloting a private cloud project
7%
5%
Built a test version and found it wasn’t worth pursuing
4%
3%
Currently testing parts of a private cloud
3%
12%
Does not apply
19%
3%
Base: 95 respondents in 2019 and 111 in 2018 who use private cloud or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 24

Moving Apps from Private Cloud to Public Cloud Services

Can you provision and/or move applications and data from your private cloud to one or more public
cloud services like AWS, Azure, etc.?

Yes, we can deploy on either

public or private cloud,
whichever makes the most 20%
28% sense for a particular
35% workload 34%

Yes, but we’re still piloting; 10%

we don’t move production
workloads between the two
15%
No, but we are developing
22% this capability and plan to
36%
deploy within 12 months

No, but we’re thinking about it

2019 2018
Base: 95 respondents in 2019 and 111 in 2018 who use private cloud or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 25

Public vs. Private Cloud-Based Workloads

Approximately what is the ratio of total cloud-based workloads running on public versus private
infrastructure?

Almost all public

75% or greater public 14%

16% 18% and 25% or less private 16%

Between 50% and 75%

public 15%
16% 12% 15%
About 50%/50% public
and private

10% 12% Between 25% and 50% 14% 14%

16% public versus private
12%
Less than 25% public

Almost all private

2019 2018

Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users in August 2019 and 200 in January 2018

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Figure 26

Private Cloud Platforms

What cloud platform are you using for your private cloud?
2019 2018
VMware
52%
56%
Microsoft Azure Stack
38%
23%
Container-based
27%
21%
OpenStack variant
25%
14%
CloudStack
19%
20%
Oracle
19%
24%
HPE
8%
7%
OpenNebula
6%
1%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Base: 95 respondents in 2019 and 111 in 2018 who use private cloud or hybrid cloud infrastructure
Data: InformationWeek survey of cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 27

Success of Cloud Meeting IT Goals

How successful is your IaaS initiative in meeting the following IT goals?

Extremely or Neither Somewhat or

somewhat successful completely
successful nor unsuccessful unsuccessful

Better scalability                      59% 26% 15%

Better overall reliability 56% 27% 17%

More efficient use of hardware                      53% 28% 19%

Better peak application performance 52% 34% 14%

Better disaster recovery 51% 35% 14%

Better average application performance 49% 36% 15%

Faster delivery of applications to the business 47% 43% 10%

More efficient use of IT staff time 46% 39% 15%

Standardized OS builds 46% 44% 10%

Allowing self-service for end users 36% 49% 15%

Base: 142 respondents in 2019 and 155 in 2018 who use public IaaS, private cloud, or hybrid cloud infrastructure

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Figure 28 Figure 29

Percentage of Applications
Delivered Through SaaS
Role of Shadow IT
Model in 2019 What best describes the role of “Shadow IT,” where departmental or business unit leaders
What percentage of your applications currently Lorem ipsum acquire and manage SaaS services independent of the IT group?
are delivered through a SaaS model?

9% 12% 15% Shadow IT has never been a practice

16%
It was common in the past, less so now
19% 10% 40%
It is a serious concern for the IT group
23% 10%
21% We have a productive partnership on SaaS between IT
and business leaders

25% Don’t know

75% or more 10% to 24%

50% to 74% Under 10%

25% to 49% None

Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 30

Tech Used to Manage SaaS

Which technologies does your organization use in managing SaaS?

Subscription management
53%
License management
42%
Usage tracking/analytics
37%
Vendor management
25%
Spend management
21%
SaaS operations management
19%
Shadow IT detection
10%
Note: Multiple responses allowed
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 31

Respondent Job Title

Which of the following best describes your job title?

Director/manager, IT, IT operations, security

29%
CEO/president/owner/partner
20%
IT/IS staff
17%
CIO/CTO
9%
Consultant
8%
COO/operations management
3%
Vice president, IT, security
3%
CFO/financial management
2%
CSO/security management
1%
Security staff
1%
Other
7%
Data: InformationWee survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 32 Figure 33

Respondent Company Size Respondent Company Revenue

How many employees are in your organization What is the annual revenue of your entire organization?
in total?
$5 billion or more

8% 3% $1 billion to $4.9 billion

17% 5%
$500 million to $999.9 million
30%
7% $100 million to $499.9 million
36%
11%
6% $50 million to $99.9 million

$6 million to $49.9 million

24% 19%
16% Less than $6 million
18%
Government/nonprofit

Don’t know/decline to say

Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019
1,000 or more

500 to 999

100 to 499

Fewer than 100

Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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Figure 34

Respondent Industry
What is your organization’s primary industry?

Consulting and business services

17%
IT vendors
12%
Education
10%
Healthcare/medical
8%
Financial services/banking/securities and investments
8%
Telecommunications/ISPs
7%
Manufacturing/industrial, non-computer
5%
Nonprofit
5%
Media/entertainment
4%
Biotech/biomedical/pharmaceutical
3%
Construction/engineering
3%
Electronics
3%
Government
3%
Energy
2%
Retail/e-commerce
2%
Other
RESEARCH REPORT 8%
Data: InformationWeek survey of 150 cloud computing users, August 2019

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