Despite the persistence of security concerns, companies are moving a variety of IT and business operations to the cloud at a steady pace. Indeed, on average, IT leaders expect slightly more than half of their IT environment to be cloud-based by the end of 2016.
That's the conclusion of an IDG Enterprise recent survey of 962 IT decision-makers. The annual cloud survey represents the practices and opinions of technology buyers whose organizations have already moved at least one application or a portion of their infrastructure to the cloud, or who plan to do so.
"For the first time, companies can foresee a time when more than half of their IT environment will be in the cloud," the study concludes.
Currently, 8 percent of respondents boast an entirely cloud-based IT environment, according to this survey. On average, companies have 44 percent of their IT environment in the cloud. They anticipate that, over the next 18 months, adoption will creep up so that an average 56 percent of their IT environments will be in the cloud by the end of 2016.
While companies will continue to use a mix of public, private and hybrid cloud models, the survey indicates that private cloud is the preferred option, especially at large enterprises.
Many large enterprises are using the cloud to replace legacy, on-premises systems, according to analysis by IDG Enterprise. While the decisions about cloud-based computing are made collaboratively with business executives, the CIO is often the most influential player, followed by the CTO and the CSO.
Download this exclusive 2015 IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey to find out more about the evolving cloud market. You'll gain valuable insights about topics such as the following:
- A breakdown of spending for software as a service vs. infrastructure as a service
- The differences in cloud spending by vertical industries (such as healthcare and financial services)
- The booming interest in cloud-based data storage
- The future of APIs to integrate applications with the cloud
- IT buyers' expectations for security and compliance
- How IT buyers want assistance from their cloud vendors in selling the benefits to internal stakeholders
Download the survey results now:
This story, "IT shops will pass the cloud tipping point in 2016, survey finds" was originally published by CIO.