A Custom Technology Adoption Profile Commissioned By Dell November 2014 Cloud Without Limits: How To Deliver Hybrid Cloud With Agility, Governance, And Choice Introduction With more and more business applications and IT infrastructure moving to the cloud, organizations are increasingly managing multiple cloud providers. As larger companies expand their use of cloud services, it becomes very important for IT pros to make sure that they offer developers and busines users a range of cloud services that are standardized, secure, and costefficient. They must do this without slowing down cloud adoption or limiting developer productivity. In September 2014, Dell commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the need for cloud management tools to manage this increasing complexity and ensure successful cloud adoption. To do so, Forrester leveraged its Business Technographics survey data and supplemented that data with a custom survey of 198 US IT decision-makers at with 5,000 or more employees.
1 The Hybrid Cloud Is Here, And It s Growing Today, most large companies have adopted cloud computing in some form. As organizations increasingly trust the security of public cloud solutions, they are expanding their use of cloud to offer business customers rapid scalability, faster time-to-market, and access to new cloud services that help them stay ahead of the competition. As companies continue to deploy cloud for new workloads, many are already supporting multicloud, hybrid models. Hybrid cloud is the future, and it's here today. Our study found that: Cloud is ubiquitous and growing. According to Forrester s Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey, 2014, 53% of 5,000-plus-employee have adopted internal private cloud or intend to do so in the next year. Additionally, 42% have adopted or plan to adopt hosted private cloud, and 33% have adopted or plan to adopt at least one public cloud solution. This adoption is only slated to rise: Our custom survey found that 79% of respondents expect to expand their usage of cloud in the next three years, and no respondents expect to reduce it. Multicloud hybrid models have become the norm. Forrester s data shows that over 50% of those using public cloud are using multiple vendor platforms to offer customers a range of options and access to new services from different suppliers. Roughly a third of organizations are already relying on three or more public cloud providers (see Figure 1). Cloud provides flexibility and cost savings. Our custom survey found that the top benefits of cloud are the ability to leverage affordable IT services as needed, offer a range of services to match business needs, and provide access to elastic capacity to scale out applications easily when business demands change (see Figure 2). When deployed properly, cloud is the best way to increase business agility, but as these hybrid cloud services proliferate within the enterprise, it becomes more important than ever for IT to manage them. FIGURE 1 The Hybrid Cloud Is Here: 52% Use Two Or More Public Cloud Providers Today How many vendor products does your firm use as its provider for itspubliccloud platform? 6+ 5% 3 17% 4 6% 5 4% 2 20% 1 47% Base: 137 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee Note: Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. Source: Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey, 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. FIGURE 2 Companies Turn To Cloud For Elastic Scalability, Choice, And Self-service What are the main reasons your company has chosen to use cloud services? Rank 1 Rank 2 Rank 3 Leverage lower-cost, elastic IT resources when we need them 30% 20% 14% Offer the business a range of cloud services to meet different needs 21% 16% 18% Leverage elastic capacity to scale out applications easily 13% 21% 19% Provide self-service IT to developer and/or business users 15% 14% 16% Shorten our software delivery life cycle 12% 12% 14% 4% Standardize our development process to reduce variability 8% 11% Offer developers a choice of cloud-native services and tools 6% 8% 8% Base: 198 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee
2 Growing Hybrid Cloud Portfolios Will Add Complexity For IT Pros As their use of cloud expands, IT professionals are less confident that existing management tools are adequate. The trend towards multivendor hybrid cloud models is challenging them to figure out how they should manage disparate cloud services while delivering a consistent experience to developers and other business consumers of cloud. In addition to having lingering fears about general cloud security and performance, they now need help to overcome the complexity associated with multiple cloud providers, from inconsistency across providers to monitoring and tracking usage across multiple clouds. IT managers need help managing multiple clouds today. IT pros told us their top challenges in a multicloud environment are limiting access to certain cloud services by role or group, offering consistent services across multiple cloud providers, monitoring performance across clouds, and tracking spending to control the cloud budget (see Figure 3). The top concern highlights how important governance is to ensure that enterprise cloud services are delivered in a consistent, repeatable, and managed way. Expanding use of cloud services will lead to additional challenges. Our custom survey further asked those who were expanding cloud services how difficult they expected cloud management processes to be moving forward, and they cited problems with consistency (40%), migrating workloads between cloud services (32%), and monitoring performance across cloud services (31%), among others, as somewhat or very difficult processes (see Figure 4). Respondents also called out the need to support multiple cloud provider portals and standardize on a set of accepted service blueprints and templates. FIGURE 3 Role-Based Controls, Consistency, And Performance Monitoring Are Challenges Today [If cloud services are expected to stay the same in next three years ], please rate how difficult the following cloud management processes are for you today. Somewhat difficult Very difficult Limiting access to certain cloud services by role or group Offering consistent services across multiple cloud providers Monitoring performance across multiple cloud services Tracking cloud spending and controlling budget Supporting multiple cloud provider portals Provisioning workloads consistently to different clouds Migrating workloads between cloud services Offering cross-cloud service blueprints and templates Managing account details across clouds 17% 5% 15% 5% 17% 2% 17% 2% 12% 2% 24% 5% 20% 5% 20% 2% 29% Base: 41 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee who are planning to keep cloud services the same in the next three years FIGURE 4 As Companies Expand Their Use Of Cloud Services, Additional Cloud Management Challenges Will Arise As you grow your use of cloud services, please rate how difficult you expect the following cloud management processes to be. Somewhat difficult Very difficult Offering consistent services across multiple cloud providers 34% 6% Migrating workloads between cloud services 22% 10% Monitoring performance across multiple cloud services 24% 7% Supporting multiple cloud provider portals 25% 4% Offering cross-cloud service blueprints and templates 22% 6% Provisioning workloads consistently to different clouds 24% 3% Managing account details across clouds 19% 3% Tracking cloud spending and controlling budget 19% 3% Limiting access to certain cloud services by role or group 17% 2% Base: 156 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee who plan to expand cloud within next three years
3 Cloud Management Tools Offer Monitoring And Integration Facing this multicloud, hybrid world, IT professionals are now looking for new solutions to replace various legacy IT management tools, improve on cloud-vendor-provided tools, and consolidate homegrown tools that, until now, have been mixed and matched to manage cloud resources. By investing in a unified cloud management solution that can support their entire cloud portfolio in ways that suit developers and business users alike, IT pros can maintain control and ensure consistency across clouds and across their organizations. Fifty-three percent of survey respondents already have a cloud management solution in place, and an additional 32% are actively seeking one. The business demands that IT take control of the cloud experience. Forrester s data shows that business stakeholders expect IT to quickly offer them the power and choice of cloud, but they also expect cloud services to be reliable, perform well, and come with enterprise-grade support. That means IT must prioritize performance monitoring (43%), security services (42%), and compliance management (39%), in addition to making sure resources are used wisely, costs are under control, and services are available via a simple self-service portal all designed to make cloud easier for the business to consume with confidence (see Figure 5). IT professionals expect a lot out of a unified cloud management system. Our study uncovered a number of features that are important to cloud decision-makers when evaluating cloud solutions. Among the most important are that a solution integrates with existing back-end IT management tools, extends IT governance policies to all cloud services managed, supports a range of configuration management tools, and includes a self-service portal (see Figure 6). FIGURE 5 Business Stakeholders Expect IT To Monitor, Secure, Govern, And Optimize Resources Across Cloud Providers How will IT make cloud easier to consume for your business stakeholders? Performance monitoring 43% Security services 42% Service level agreement management Self-service, cloud app or service portal Compliance 39% Resource optimization 37% Cost monitoring 37% Single sign on 37% Base: 330 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee Note: only answers with 33% or greater shown Source: Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey, 2014, Forrester Research, Inc. FIGURE 6 Unified Cloud Management Solutions Must Include Integration, Governance, Configuration Management, And Self-Service Features How important to you are the following features of a unified cloud management system? Important Integrates with our back-end systems tools Extends our IT governance policies to all cloud services managed Supports configuration management tools Includes a self-service portal Includes developer tools and services Supports a broad range of public and private cloud IaaS and PaaS platforms Cloud spend tracking and budget controls Very important 34% 34% 37% 41% 31% 45% 40% 36% 38% 37% 34% 38% 43% 29% 32% 37% Base: 198 North American cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee
4 Conclusion Hybrid cloud has arrived and offers a myriad of benefits to organizations, but it comes with a new set of challenges caused by complexity and lack of integration and visibility across different cloud services. IT decision-makers are recognizing the need for a cloud management solution that provides monitoring, governance and control, and visibility into security and performance, and integrates a wide range of cloud solutions through a unified portal. Our study yielded the following key findings: Hybrid cloud is not only the future it s here today. Both public and private cloud adoption continue to accelerate in enterprises of all sizes, and more than half of cloud users rely on more than one public cloud provider already. IT pros should be planning for a multicloud environment today. As the number of cloud services in use grows, so will IT management complexity. In order to deliver the range of cloud services required to meet expanding business user demands, IT pros need a consistent approach to governance, monitoring, and performance management without slowing down cloud adoption. The business expects IT to deliver cloud services that are consistent and well-managed, yet easy to consume. To deliver the hybrid cloud the business wants, IT pros must consolidate multiple cloud provider offerings into a simple, standardized set of well-managed cloud services and offer them via a self-service portal. IT professionals know what they need in a unified cloud management solution. Our survey confirmed that unified cloud management solutions must include strong governance controls, support a range of configuration management tools, integrate easily with existing IT tools, and offer a simple self-service consumption portal. Methodology This Technology Adoption Profile was commissioned by Dell. To create this profile, Forrester leveraged its Business Technographics Global Infrastructure Survey, 2014. Forrester Consulting supplemented this data with custom survey questions asked of 198 US cloud decision-makers at 5,000-plus-employee. The auxiliary custom survey began in September 2014 and was completed in October 2014. For more information on Forrester s data panel and Tech Industry Consulting services, visit www.forrester.com. ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING Forrester Consulting provides independent and objective research-based consulting to help leaders succeed in their organizations. 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 www.forrester.com. 1-RLNLRO