98% of firms using public cloud adopt multicloud infrastructure provider strategy

Multicloud is the new reality in enterprise technology according to a study from 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, commissioned by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The study collected information from 1,500 respondents at enterprises – organisations with more than 1,000 full-time employees in North America or more than 500 in other regions – about how they use the cloud within their organisation and found that almost every cloud journey is now becoming a multicloud journey.

In recent years, cloud has become nearly synonymous with IT as enterprises seek increased business agility and improved operational efficiency from the technology they use. While these trends have existed for some time, more than 90 percent of respondents agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a strong driver of greater interest and investment in cloud technology. As organisations faced new challenges such as increased levels of remote work and collaboration with new business partners and suppliers, they adopted a multicloud strategy to gain the flexibility and scalability they needed for this new reality.

Melanie Posey, research director, cloud & managed services transformation at 451 Research, said: “The ‘one-stop-shop’ mentality has died when it comes to the cloud. Instead, multicloud is the reality of enterprise technology environments as these organisations seek to get the right mix of solutions and capabilities they need to operate effectively.

“Multicloud is here to stay, and enterprises are choosing this model for the benefits it provides for a range of different business and operational requirements, like business agility or access to best-of-breed technology.”

Key findings from the study include:

Almost every cloud journey is multicloud

98% of enterprises surveyed are using or plan to use at least two cloud infrastructure providers and 31% are using four or more.
96% reported they are using or plan to use at least two cloud application providers (Software-as-a-Service), with 45% using cloud applications from five or more providers.
This multicloud strategy allows IT departments to meet the specific technology needs of different teams across the organisation.

Data sovereignty and cost optimisation are driving demand for multicloud strategies

The top two drivers of multicloud strategies in enterprises are data sovereignty (41%) and cost optimisation (40%).
Other drivers of multicloud strategies include business agility and innovation (30%), best of breed cloud services and applications (25%) and cloud vendor lock-in concerns (25%).
Multicloud strategies give enterprises more control over where and how their data is stored and used, while also ensuring businesses can control the costs of their cloud operations by adjusting which services they use from different providers.

Enterprise organisations are proactively planning multicloud strategies for the future

Data redundancy (54%) is the most anticipated future use case, followed by data mobility (49%) and cost optimisation across public clouds (42%).
IT departments also plan to use multicloud strategies for risk mitigation for the entire IT environment (40%) and geographic expansion or global service delivery (38%).
The fact that IT departments are planning multicloud strategies shows that they see multicloud as a way to get ahead of their technology needs, instead of simply a tactic to react to crises.

Leo Leung, VP, OCI and Oracle Technology, said: “Multicloud is here, whether enterprises are ready for it or not. Business mergers can turn even the most stable of IT strategies into a multicloud environment overnight.

“Whether IT teams are starting their multicloud plans from scratch or already have an implementation in place but want to add best-of-breed cloud services, OCI’s distributed cloud can help. With the recent introduction of MySQL HeatWave on AWS and Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure, customers have even more capabilities to help their multicloud strategies succeed.”

The survey data used in this report was collected by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, and commissioned by Oracle. The global survey was fielded in the third quarter of 2022 and is based on a cross-industry sample of 1,500 enterprise respondents in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.