The move to multicloud and the edge tops business priority lists

Equinix has published the findings of a global survey exploring IT decision-makers’ insights into the biggest technology trends shaping the worldwide economy. The results of the study—which gathered responses from nearly 2,500 participants from 23 countries in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific—show companies were already preparing for a more connected world, ahead of the dynamically changing environment triggered by COVID-19.

 

Findings revealed there are significant ambitions by businesses to embrace a multicloud approach, but that adoption is still at less than 20% worldwide, and at 14% in the UK. Globally, one in two (50%) IT leaders, compared to just below half (45%) of respondents in the UK, state they are prioritising moving their infrastructure to the digital edge—where population centres, commerce, and digital and business ecosystems meet and interact in real time—as part of their organisation’s overarching technology strategy.

 

Nearly three-quarters (71%) of global respondents said they plan to move more of their IT functions to the cloud, compared to 68% in the UK. Two-thirds (66% globally, 59% in the UK) of these plan on doing so within the next 12 months, despite nearly half (49% globally, 43% in the UK) of respondents still seeing perceived cybersecurity risks around cloud adoption as posing a threat to their business.

 

Cloud strategies considered include a dispersed multicloud approach where a single company will use different cloud providers for different functions. This is a major trend emerging in the marketplace and corroborated by the study. 45% of global IT leaders, compared to 36% in the UK, say their technology strategy includes moving to a multicloud approach, which will have significant implications for the industry as businesses continue to diversify their portfolio of cloud providers. But while there is clearly a strategic shift underway, multicloud adoption is far from ubiquitous: fewer than one in five (17% globally, 14% in the UK) IT decision-makers said their business is currently deploying across multiple clouds. Hybrid cloud deployments—whereby companies use a combination of one or more public cloud providers with a private cloud platform or IT infrastructure—are more commonplace, with 34% of IT decision-makers globally already having hybrid strategies in place. This figure drops significantly in the UK to 22%.

 

To cater to the rapid adoption of hybrid multicloud solutions, Equinix recently announced it has acquired bare metal automation platform leader Packet. Coupled with Equinix’s flagship cloud connectivity platform, Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric™ (ECX Fabric™), which supports hybrid multicloud strategies by directly, securely and dynamically connecting distributed infrastructure and digital ecosystems globally, the service enables companies to bypass the public internet and make the move to the digital edge—whilst avoiding unnecessary cybersecurity risk.

 

Implementing an interconnected fabric of network and cloud hubs at the digital edge in this way simplifies the complexity of hybrid IT and provides the choice, scale and agility required for current and future digital business requirements. By providing this critical infrastructure in 55 markets across the world, Equinix is ensuring its customers are better equipped to securely reach everywhere, interconnect everyone and integrate everything that matters to their business.

 

Survey highlights

• The survey of 2,485 IT decision-makers across 23 countries was conducted online between 1 and 16 August 2019.
• 71% of IT decision-makers globally plan to move more IT functions to the cloud in the future. This figure is at 68% in the UK. Key functions being moved to the cloud include productivity tools, legacy applications and databases.
• Of the IT leaders planning to move these functions to the cloud, two-thirds (66% globally, 59% in the UK) plan on doing so within the next 12 months.
• 49% of IT decision-makers surveyed globally see perceived cybersecurity risks around cloud adoption as being considerably threatening to their business, compared to 43% in the UK.
• 45% of IT leaders around the world (36% in the UK), are planning to move to a multicloud technology strategy, but only 17% (14% in the UK) said they are currently deploying across multiple clouds.
• Globally, 44% of IT infrastructure is currently on the cloud. In the Americas this figure is higher at 49%, while in EMEA it is just 40%. Asia-Pacific matches the global average at 44%.
• In the UK, 42% of IT decision-makers say their IT infrastructure is currently on the cloud—a figure ahead of the EMEA average, but behind globally.
• 50% of IT decision-makers globally, compared to 45% in the UK, cite moving their infrastructure to the digital edge as one of the biggest priorities of their technology strategy. This figure jumps to 60% in the Americas.
• The third volume of the annual Global Interconnection Index (GXI) forecast that private connectivity at the edge would grow by 51% compound annual growth rate (CAGR)—exceeding a remarkable 13,300+ Tbps by 2022.
• By combining Equinix’s Network Edge services with ECX Fabric™, businesses can deploy virtual edge devices and interconnect them to clouds and network providers located in new global markets with low latency—extending their reach to potentially thousands of new business partners around the world.