It s A Hybrid Cloud World Strategies For Cloud Success

Transcription

1 A Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper Commissioned By NTT Communications ICT Solutions (NTT ICT) and HP Nov ember 2014 It s A Hybrid Cloud World Strategies For Cloud Success

2 Table Of Contents Executive Summary...1 Organisations Are Evolving Their Cloud Requirements As They Become Mature Cloud Users...2 However, Progressing To A Hybrid Cloud Remains A Challenge...4 Organisations Will Refine Their Strategy For Hybrid Cloud Success...6 Key Recommendations...9 Appendix A: Methodology Appendix B: Demographics/Data Appendix C: Endnotes ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organisations. Ranging in scope from a short strategy session to custom projects, Forrester s Consulting services connect you directly with research analysts who apply expert insight to your specific business challenges. For more information, visit forrester.com/consulting. 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. For additional information, go to 1-RFLAYV

3 1 Executive Summary Make no mistake: Many industries today face the threat of disruption, thanks to what Forrester sees as a digital revolution. 1 This revolution has been brought about by a combination of factors: Customers are using mobile, social, and other digital technologies to take power from organisations. This is what Forrester calls the age of the customer. Customers can easily discover pricing, publicly critique products they don't like, and buy from anyone anytime, anywhere. The age of the customer will place harsh and unfamiliar demands on organisations, necessitating changes in how they develop, market, sell, and deliver products and services. 2 To differentiate and drive improved business agility, Australian organisations are embracing cloud services from a wide range of cloud providers. But to manage these new, unfamiliar hybrid cloud environments, organisations need support from reliable cloud service providers. In September 2014, NTT Communications ICT Solutions (NTT ICT) and HP commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate adoption trends across a hybrid mix of cloud services (e.g., public, private, virtual private) and traditional IT capabilities. Then to further explore this trend, Forrester developed a hypothesis that tested the following assertions: The needs of Australian organisations have evolved beyond basic public-cloud-based compute/storage; they are sourcing the appropriate cloud services based on increasingly well-defined workload requirements. Organisations are reevaluating their existing and planned cloud-related investments to factor in support for open standards, such as OpenStack, as a key evaluation criterion. Organisations need support from reliable cloud service providers that can ensure flexible access to globally interconnected data centres and help manage cloud services sourced from diverse cloud providers, both critical for successfully meeting diverse business requirements. KEY FINDINGS In conducting in-depth surveys with 150 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers from organisations in Australia with more than 250 employees, Forrester s study yielded the following key findings: Business agility is a key driver, but existing cloud service providers are hindering value delivery. The benefits of using cloud services do not vary much. Cost savings are important, but so are speed of deployment, simplification of IT, and centralisation of IT management. In our view, these fit under a broader theme that of business agility. However, organisations do not appear to be achieving it with their existing service providers. For example, three-quarters of Australian companies want better network performance and application assurance from their cloud service providers, suggesting that the quality of their cloud applications is inconsistent and missing agility. Organisations wish to avoid vendor lock-in, but hybrid cloud adoption is low in Australia. Close to half of Australian organisations see vendor lock-in as a major concern in selecting a cloud service provider. To mitigate vendor lock-in, organisations should consider using open standards, such as OpenStack, to move workloads between different clouds but they need help. Currently, 53% of respondents do not move workloads between clouds; of the small proportion who do, almost nine out of 10 respondents found this to be challenging. As a consequence, organisations today are either consuming public or private cloud services, eschewing a hybrid model. They lack confidence in their existing service provider to help them move workloads between clouds. About half of organisations reevaluating cloud requirements expect their next cloud provider to have a comprehensive profile of cloud offerings, as well as different management capabilities. Concerns over data sovereignty must be addressed as part of a holistic cloud services assessment. Sixtynine percent of respondents rated data sovereignty as a major concern. This suggests that cloud providers may not be competently addressing these concerns with their customers, or that organisations are not holistically identifying specific workloads that require localisation needs to support industry-specific sovereignty guidelines. Organisations should look at a holistic approach to lower data sovereignty concerns, ensuring that cloud providers are compliant with local regulatory guidelines and are able to support customers with deep domain knowledge.

4 2 Organisations Are Evolving Their Cloud Requirements As They Become Mature Cloud Users Forrester recently predicted in a report that Australia will rise to the No. 2 public cloud computing market. 3 As with virtualisation, smartphones, and other technologies, Australia is a very fast follower once the technology has established its value in the US and Europe, and this is quickly becoming the case for public cloud services. This claim is also evident in our study of 150 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers from organisations in Australia, which shows that 55% of respondents used public cloud usage for 12 months or longer, compared with 47% for private clouds. However, the broader finding was that Australian organisations were likely to be either public or private cloud adopters rather than hybrid ones. A hybrid cloud is defined as a cloud environment where an organisation mixes the use of both public and private clouds for its workloads. Our findings showed that: Organisations are getting more comfortable in running cloud applications to augment on-premises workloads. Fifty-three percent of respondents ran more than half of their applications in the cloud, and a high number of them have been doing this for 12 months or longer. Both infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) topped the use cases for organisations that have adopted cloud services (see Figure 1), suggesting a maturing state for these cloud use cases. Organisations are sharpening their cloud workload requirements for business agility. In the next six months, more organisations will be looking at deploying disk-to-disk cloud backup, platform-as-a-service, archiveas-a-service, and database-as-a-service, which suggests that organisations are increasingly articulating and defining workload requirements, and hence determining the cloud environments they wish to consume. This enhances the typical organisational business agility requirements: speeding up deployment, simplifying use of FIGURE 1 Basic Compute/Storage And Cloud Software Are The Two Most Common Use Cases What type of cloud service are you currently using? How long have you been using it? Using: 2+ years Using: 1 to 2 years Using: 3 to 12 months Using: less than 3 months Not using IaaS 11% 36% 29% 4% 20% SaaS Disk-to-disk-to-cloud backup PaaS Do-it-yourself disaster recovery at a cloud service provider Disaster-recovery as-a-service Backup-as-a-service 11% 25% 37% 7% 20% 15% 18% 20% 21% 25% 7% 19% 33% 8% 33% 7% 26% 17% 14% 35% 8% 23% 22% 6% 41% 9% 9% 25% 14% 42% Database-as-a-service 3% 16% 21% 6% 54% Archive-as-a-service 5% 9% 18% 8% 59%

5 3 IT, centralising IT management, and saving costs. Organisations have yet to embrace a hybrid cloud model. Hybrid cloud usage of 12 months or longer among Australian organisations is low at 12%. A high percentage of respondents (78%) have not used hybrid models at all, suggesting that they are uncomfortable with the mixed environments (see Figure 2). The reasons why are discussed in the next section. FIGURE 2 Seventy-Eight Percent Of Organisations Are Not Using Hybrid Cloud, Preferring Either Public Or Private Instances What kind of cloud are you currently using? How long have you been using it? Public cloud Using: less than 3 months 15% Using: 3 to 12 months Using: 1 to 2 years 29% Using: 2+ years Not using 39% 16% 1% Private cloud 8% 16% 24% 23% 29% Hybrid cloud 8% 3% 7% 5% 78%

6 4 However, Progressing To A Hybrid Cloud Remains A Challenge Given Australian organisations increasing maturity with cloud use and their focus on business agility, it may make sense to embrace a hybrid cloud environment. In fact, of the small numbers that already use a hybrid cloud, they do so for the following reasons (see Figure 3): To avoid vendor lock-in. To allow partners and customers to access specific data, connected to a specific cloud workload from an external cloud. To better utilise resources by maintaining maximum throughput at all times. For cloud bursting during peak periods. However, organisations face significant challenges in moving to a hybrid cloud model: Organisations lack the confidence in their service providers to help them move workloads between different clouds. To avoid vendor lock-in, organisations prefer to be able to move workloads between cloud service providers. However, close to nine out of 10 acknowledged that this is a challenge, with 3 out of 8 respondents having jeopardised workload transitions, which ultimately leads to business disruptions (see Figure 4). This problem is exacerbated by the fact that of 40 out of 55 respondents in this group relied on their service providers to automate and move workloads between clouds, taking control out of their hands. This may prevent organisations from embracing a hybrid cloud model given a lack of confidence in their existing cloud service provider to help them do it. FIGURE 3 Organisations Use A Hybrid Cloud To Avoid Vendor Lock-In FIGURE 4 Organisations Find It Difficult To Move Workloads Between Clouds On Existing Cloud Services Why do you move your services/workloads between these cloud providers? How challenging is it for you to move your services/ workloads between providers? We want to avoid vendor lock-in 78% Somewhat challenging. We have some difficulties in moving workloads 8 Samples We let our ecosystem of partners and customers access specific data, so they connect to a specific workload from an external cloud 69% Very challenging. We have critical difficulties that jeopardised the workload transition, and business was disrupted 3 Samples We want to better utilise our resources by maintaining maximum throughput of resources at all times 58% No issues to date. Our service provider offers an automated workload transition 1 Samples We use this method for cloud bursting during peak usage We use a hybrid cloud model, so some assets remain in a private cloud 31% 53% Base: 16 CIOs/IT decision-makers in Australia Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NTT ICT and HP, September 2014 Base: 55 CIOs/IT decision-makers in Australia Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NTT ICT and HP, September 2014

7 5 Organisations are at the mercy of unreliable network connectivity and app performance. Unreliable network connectivity poses a challenge for moving to a hybrid cloud model. Three-quarters of respondents said that they want more stability for their applications and network. Another 76% said that there were latency lags and application performance issues when accessing cloud applications with their current cloud service providers (see Figure 5). Forty-five percent felt that integrating cloud offerings with their internal applications, databases, and/or computing infrastructure was too complex or costly. The drivers for cloud, such as agility, flexibility, and cost savings, are colliding with internal IT management issues, affecting organisations as they struggle to make these tradeoffs work. Given the inherent network, application, and internal IT challenges, moving to a hybrid cloud is probably a low organisational priority. Per-use pricing may not be a panacea for some. While the hybrid cloud model could solve some business agility challenges, it may not work for certain industries. Thirtyseven percent of respondents were uncomfortable with volatile per-use pricing models, suggesting that they preferred a more consistent and predictable way of allocating expenditure. This concern was more prevalent in organisations from the banking and financial services and energy and utilities industries, which rated it as a seven or higher on a 10-point scale. This suggests that while the cloud augments some organisations in their IT strategy, they may prefer to operate in a virtual private cloud environment due to issues such as regulatory constraints. FIGURE 5 Network And Latency Issues Are The Major Cloud Challenges For Organisations How challenging is it for you to move your services/ workloads between providers? My cloud service provider meets all my cloud needs (IaaS, PaaS) My cloud service provider lets me self-provision my cloud needs My cloud service provider has stringent compliance measures and certification in place My cloud service provider has a high-quality customer e-portal (e.g., self-service, tickets, invoices, reports) My cloud service provider doesn t quite know how to move workload traffic between my cloud and other clouds There was a latency lag after app migration to a private, virtual private, or public cloud, and it has deteriorated application performance We constantly experienced network and application instability when accessing applications in the cloud Higher (rating 7 to 10) Mid (rating 4 to 6) 61% 31% 9% 34% 52% 14% 39% 47% 14% 37% 47% 17% 29% 52% 19% 33% 43% 24% 17% 59% 25% Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of NTT ICT and HP, September 2014 Lower (rating 1 to 3)

8 6 Organisations Will Refine Their Strategy For Hybrid Cloud Success Australian organisations are starting to mature their initial cloud service requirements. As they look at selecting their next cloud service provider, they will need to refine their cloud business needs. These include: Identifying how specific cloud workloads can meet data sovereignty requirements. Data sovereignty is understandably a top concern for 96% of respondents; only 4% see this as a low concern (rating it from a score of 1 to 3) (see Figure 6). Even government agencies are cautious with data in the cloud: For instance, government CIOs still have to obtain approval from two ministers before they can store sensitive data in an offshore or onshore public cloud. 4 This suggests that cloud providers may not be competently addressing these concerns with their customers, or that organisations are not holistically identifying specific workloads that require localisation needs to support industry-specific sovereignty guidelines. Organisations should look at a holistic approach to lower data sovereignty concerns, ensuring that cloud providers are compliant with local regulatory guidelines and are able to support customers with deep domain knowledge. Resolving the dissonance in cloud provision satisfaction. Services like IaaS and SaaS today form the bulk of cloud consumption. However, as organisations mature in their usage of cloud, early benefits such as cost savings and pooled resourcing are giving way to more specific workload demands: Only six of 10 respondents agreed that their current cloud service provider meets all their needs. Almost a third of respondents strongly indicated that their cloud service provider doesn t quite know how to move workload traffic between their cloud and other clouds, signaling dissatisfaction with their existing service provider. Organisations are sharpening their cloud service requirements and will reevaluate whether their existing cloud service providers can meet future cloud needs. FIGURE 6 Data Sovereignty Remains A High Concern And Needs To Be Addressed Holistically On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest and 1 is the lowest, how strongly do you rate your firm s concerns, if any, with cloud services? Higher (rating 7 to 10) Mid (rating 4 to 6) Lower (rating 1 to 3) We are concerned about data sovereignty We have strict compliance requirements that can t be met We have not fully depreciated our current hardware/software We are not comfortable with volatile per-use pricing models Integrating cloud offerings with our internal applications, databases, and/or computing infrastructure is too complex or costly We believe our existing total costs of an on-premises data center are cheaper Our legacy applications vendors will not support cloud deployments Service levels are insufficient or nonexistent We cannot find SaaS applications that meet our needs 69% 27% 4% 31% 58% 11% 47% 41% 12% 37% 49% 13% 45% 41% 15% 30% 54% 16% 35% 46% 19% 29% 49% 22% 30% 45% 25%

9 7 Opting for open standards by mixing workloads between public and private clouds. In its recent report, the Department of Communications of the Australian government said that lock-in not only impacts consumers, but can affect competition in the cloud services market by making it particularly difficult for new entrants to attract existing cloud users to their services. 5 Similarly, close to half of Australian organisations in our survey are cautious of vendor lock-in, while another 43% said they think this is a medium-level issue (see Figure 7). This means they are considering using hybrid clouds for specific workloads or working with open standards such as OpenStack. However, many organisations are currently sticking to their public or private cloud environments, due to issues such as migration challenges between clouds. Almost half of respondents expect their next cloud provider to have a comprehensive profile of cloud offerings covering public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud, as well as different management capabilities (see Figure 8), indicating that their next choice of providers will have to be suitably equipped for dealing with multicloud environments. FIGURE 7 Cloud Service Providers Need To Promote Open Standards And Environment On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the highest and 1 is the lowest, how strongly do you rate your firm s concerns, if any, with cloud service providers? Lower (rating 1 to 3) Mid (rating 4 to 6) Higher (rating 7 to 10) Vendor lock-in that makes it difficult to switch 9% 43% 48% Ongoing financial stability of cloud service provider 19% 43% 37% We are confused about the vendor offering and what is really being delivered as-a-service We do not have the vendor management expertise to effectively govern the suppliers 20% 55% 25% 29% 40% 31% We cannot figure out how to set up a contract that fully protects us 31% 42% 27% We are concerned about data security and access control 16% 45% 39% We believe we cannot move our legacy applications and systems to a public cloud due to compliance restrictions We believe we cannot move our legacy applications and systems to a public cloud due to migration complexity 19% 54% 27% 12% 49% 39%

10 8 FIGURE 8 Cloud Service Providers Have To Be Able To Provide Public, Private, And Hybrid Capabilities On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the most important and 1 is the least important, please rate how important the following evaluation criteria are to your company for selecting cloud service providers. Cost-competitive with others for cloud services Higher (rating 7 to 10) Mid (rating 4 to 6) Lower (rating 1 to 3) 63% 35% 3% Flexible and agile in terms of SLA and contract clause Meets stringent compliance measures and certification Provides flexible data sovereignty and residency options to address our data security concern and data governance requirements Fast delivery and deployment time We perform due diligence on the cloud service provider to affirm its business is financially sound Quality of customer e-portal (e.g., self-service, tickets, invoices, reports) Provides support for us to move workloads between different cloud providers, between internal assets and external assets Project management capabilities to ensure project implementation smooth and successful Provides direct contact for support or through channel partners Supports existing legacy infrastructures to ensure a smooth and seamless transition and migration Provides comprehensive profile of cloud offerings covering public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud, as well as different management capabilities 44% 51% 5% 53% 39% 8% 40% 51% 9% 51% 39% 11% 41% 47% 11% 42% 45% 13% 40% 47% 13% 51% 35% 13% 53% 32% 15% 33% 52% 15% 46% 36% 18%

11 9 Key Recommendations Organisations today want business agility and flexibility in their cloud consumption. You should consider the following recommendations: Use a hybrid cloud model for your workloads. Most firms are averse to the idea of vendor lock-in; a hybrid cloud model will allow organisations to move workloads between different environments as they choose. However, our findings indicate that only 5% of respondents have been using the hybrid cloud model for more than two years. Organisations need to match their needs with a cloud service provider that can offer hybrid capabilities and can help organisations tie multiple cloud providers together in a sensible fashion. Business agility must remain a cloud service priority. Expect your existing cloud service provider to deliver a high-quality, highly consistent cloud performance. If it cannot provide agility as a business outcome, it might be reasonable to look for an alternate provider that can meet this requirement. Also, as you sharpen your cloud workload definitions, you should work with a cloud service provider that understands how to architect for that environment and can implement those needs. Data sovereignty is important in vendor selection, but it should not dominate your selection criteria. Data sovereignty is important in selecting a cloud provider, and our survey findings have shown that it continues to be an ongoing concern among organisations. Reevaluate your vendor selection checklist to make sure that you identify specific workloads that mitigate these concerns, shortlisting highly competent cloud service partners that can support you in a holistic manner. Find a cloud service provider that can help you scale your business. A benefit of working with larger cloud service providers is scale. As your business expands, having national or even global reach will help you tap an existing network while still running your cloud applications out of the service providers data centres. Having a partner that understands your cloud needs intimately also provides a high level of comfort as you grow your business.

12 10 Appendix A: Methodology In this study, Forrester interviewed CIOs and senior IT decision-makers from organisations with more than 250 employees in the financial services, local government, technology, media and telecommunications, healthcare, energy and resources, consumer, and retail sectors in Australia on their adoption trends across a hybrid mix of cloud services (e.g., public, private, virtual private) and traditional IT capabilities. Participants were asked questions such as what the current and future adoption is for cloud technology in Australia, what support organisations needed to move their legacy apps to cloud, how important an OpenStack offering is for client cloud selection criteria, and what the key requirements of organisations were in adopting cloud technology. The study began in September 2014 and was completed in September Appendix B: Demographics/Data FIGURE 9 Company Size In Australia, approximately how many employees work for your organisation? 5,000 to 19,999 employees 9% 20,000 or more employees 1% 250 to 499 employees 33% 1,000 to 4,999 employees 28% 500 to 999 employees 29%

13 11 FIGURE 10 Respondents Role Which of the following best describes your current role? IT director 35% CIO 18% Head of IT 47% FIGURE 11 Industry Breakdown Which of the following best describes the industry to which your company belongs? Retail and wholesale 21% Banking, financial services, and insurance 15% Media, entertainment, and leisure 8% Business services and consulting 26% Manufacturing 20% Energy and utilities 11% Note: Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding.

14 12 Appendix C: Endnotes 1 Source: "Unleash Your Digital Business," Forrester Research, Inc., March 19, See this report for a full discussion of the age of the customer. Source: Technology Management In The Age Of The Customer, Forrester Research, Inc., October 10, Source: Predictions For 2014: Cloud Computing, Forrester Research, Inc., December 4, 2013 and Why Australia Is A Key Cloud Market, Forrester Research, Inc., July 24, Source: Conrad Bates, Why the data sovereignty issue won t go away, CIO Australia, June 17, 2014 ( 5 Source: Australian Government Department of Communications ( data/assets/pdf_file/0004/226930/cloud_computing_regulatory_stock_take_- _May_2014.pdf).