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Infrastructure-as-a-Service Gains in Popularity

22% of enterprises have adopted a ‘cloud first’ approach.

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Apr 7, 2017

The majority of enterprises have work to do on their IT environments if they want to meet business requirements over the next five years, according to 451 Research‘s “Voice of the Enterprise: Cloud Transformation” study.

According to the survey, which focuses on cloud-computing infrastructure products and service providers, 22 percent of enterprises have adopted a cloud-first approach and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is the fastest growing cloud model. The survey respondents said they were concerned however, with service providers’ ability to integrate IT and business requirements. The report surveyed over 700 IT and cloud decision-makers across the globe.

“As organizations implement IT transformation in earnest, they are increasingly relying on strategic partners for operational assistance. Those IaaS service providers who position infrastructure and technological innovation alongside meeting business requirements will be best positioned to capitalize on this market opportunity,” said Melanie Posey, research vice president and lead analyst with 451 Research.

The respondents rated their IaaS providers both before purchase and after implementation. All the providers received high arks for performance and security but failing marks on hybrid and multi-cloud support, and customer support.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the most used provider, with 55.8 percent of respondents using it. However, when it came to whether they were getting their money’s worth, Google Cloud came out the winner, with IBM/SoftLayer and Microsoft Azure rounding out the top three.

While 39 percent of respondents said AWS was their most important IaaS provider, 35 percent chose Microsoft. Microsoft is also catching up to AWS in terms of promise and fulfillment, along with Google Cloud Platform. Both are seeing an increase in adoption rates. 43.7 percent of European respondents said Microsoft was their primary provider, with 32 percent claiming AWS.

Commenting on Microsoft’s position, Posey added, “It will be interesting to assess the impact of Azure Stack (scheduled for launch by mid-2017) on Microsoft’s overall positioning and individual attribute ratings for multi-cloud/hybrid support, as well as technical expertise and innovation.”