New Survey Shows Confusion And Urgency About Hybrid Cloud Storage, Opening Door To MSPs

By Michael Tso, CEO of Cloudian

The IT landscape today is undergoing a rapid transformation, moving from a computer and automation-based economy, where success for organizations was often measured by the power of machines in a traditional data center, to an economy based on data processed and stored in the cloud.

In this new model, businesses gain a competitive edge by collecting data about their customers, products and processes. They analyze this data in real time to uncover insights and then quickly apply this intelligence to customer-facing promotions and internal process optimization. During each step of this process, businesses rely on flexible cloud-based infrastructures to process these enormous volumes of data.

But how can businesses without the in-house IT talent to develop, deploy and maintain cloud infrastructures take part in this transformation?

Managed service providers (MSPs) with expertise in cloud technologies can take advantage of a fast-growing opportunity to act as trusted advisors and cloud solution implementers for clients seeking to play a role in this new data-focused economy. That’s one of the conclusions found in a survey conducted by Cloudian, a provider of hybrid cloud object storage systems, examining IT decision makers in the U.S. and U.K. The survey, which includes data from 409 C-level respondents and was completed in November 2016, revealed a curious mix of hope, urgency and apprehension about cloud storage solutions for enterprises.

Hybrid cloud survey identifies opportunities for MSPs

The survey reveals that significant levels of confusion still exist about cloud technologies.  Educating customers about the cloud puts MSPs in a strong position to guide their clients as they learn more about cloud infrastructures and aim to make the right decisions for their hybrid cloud storage needs. A full survey report is available here [hyperlink], and an infographic of results here [hyperlink].

While 87 percent of respondents reported that their organizations currently utilize some form of cloud storage services, a close look at responses showed that they equate many different kinds of cloud-based services as cloud storage. For instance, 49 percent identified synchronization and sharing solutions such as Dropbox, Boxcom, or OneDrive as cloud storage services, while 40 percent identified SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com and Microsoft Office 365 as examples of cloud storage used by their organizations. Less than a third of respondents indicated that their companies had a broader strategy to take advantage of hybrid cloud for general purpose data storage.

Data security was a major concern for survey takers. Nearly 60 percent of respondents indicated that their organization generates or stores data that must remain on-premise and cannot be migrated to the cloud due to regulatory compliance or data governance rules. When asked about their top reservations for adopting hybrid cloud, 62 percent of respondents named security as their largest concern, followed closely by cost, at 55 percent. Concern about management complexity and interoperability between on-premise and cloud platforms were noted by 40 percent of respondents, with 19 percent worried about hiring and retaining IT talent that specializes in hybrid cloud technologies. 

Again, this leaves MSPs in a perfect position to address these concerns by offering expertise to remove cloud adoption barriers. The flexibility of hybrid cloud services allows MSPs to customize storage solutions to the requirements of individual customers, not with one-size-fits-all constructions. Custom solutions can be developed to ensure that specific data types remain on-premise, while others go to the cloud. The experience and know-how that MSPs offer their customers can help reduce the worry about platform interoperability and manageability, with their expertise becoming the talent customers rely on to deploy and maintain hybrid cloud solutions.

The survey results also made clear that deploying hybrid cloud storage solutions was top of mind for a majority of respondents. Just over a quarter of survey-takers indicated that their company had already deployed a hybrid cloud solution to support local applications. A majority – 53 percent – indicated they plan to implement hybrid cloud storage in the next two years. Less than 20 percent of respondents indicated that they have no plans to deploy hybrid cloud storage in the future.    

The sense of urgency to implement hybrid cloud storage becomes more acute when looking at company size. The percentage of respondents from small businesses, with one to 499 employees, that intend to deploy hybrid cloud storage in the coming year is 62 percent. For medium sized companies, with 500 to 2,499 employees, the percentage rises to 77 percent. 82 percent of large organizations with more than 2,500 employees indicated they would deploy hybrid cloud storage in the coming year, an alarmingly large number that ought to serve as a wake-up call for MSPs with hybrid cloud expertise. Only the largest companies will have the in-house talent necessary to implement hybrid cloud solutions on their own, which means many companies will look to hire MSPs to deploy and manage their hybrid cloud storage solution.

One other survey finding is very telling. When companies that had not yet selected a cloud storage interface were asked if they knew what cloud standards they are likely to adopt, 76 percent said no. This indicates that this group of potential future cloud adopters – and very likely many of the respondents who expressed the intention to move to the cloud in the next two years – simply don’t understand cloud computing and don’t know the direction they should take toward selecting cloud services. MSPs have the opportunity to educate their clients about the cloud, and, once gaining their trust, be top of mind when they choose a partner to deploy hybrid cloud solutions.

The opportunity for MSPs: be your customers’ trusted advisor for hybrid cloud storage

Significant levels of confusion still exist about cloud technologies, leading to both challenges and opportunities for MSPs that serve the hybrid cloud space. Most of all, our survey reveals that many businesses are at the tipping point of deploying hybrid cloud storage, leaving MSPs like you to guide your customers as they learn more about cloud infrastructures and make the right decisions for their hybrid cloud storage needs.