The latest cloud computing survey, this time from NaviSite, has examined enterprise IT’s strategies, in particular for coping with an increasingly data-heavy ecosystem, and found that cloud is at the forefront of the data strategy for IT execs.

The report interviewed more than 500 IT professionals from companies with more than 200 employees, and found intriguing trends in the enterprise space.

Cloud computing is one of the biggest trends facing enterprise IT departments today, according to a quarter of respondents. Slashed budgets was the top trend according to 31% of those surveyed, with data explosion (25%) rounding off the top three.

There have been plenty of recent surveys dissecting trends in the enterprise space. Interestingly, one of the most recent of these, a report from Ernst & Young and India’s CIO Klub, also focused on how to cut budgets. Previous iterations of the report did similarly – 2009 advocated wide range cost-cutting and 2012 asked to cut back and create agile IT.

And of course, cloud computing and enterprise mobility were both mentioned by CommScope as being the two biggest “game changers” for IT last month.

The meat of the research examined the proliferation of data in enterprise strategy. Just under one in five (19%) respondents claimed that more than a quarter of their IT budgets were spent on storage. 46% of respondents said that between 11% and 25% of budget was put aside for storage.

And the undercurrent of massive data amounts was further emphasised when 77% of respondents said they required a “major” database – Oracle, SQL, MySQL, DB2 – for their storage needs.

Similarly, more than two in five (41%) of those surveyed said they stored company data in four or more geographic locations.

The overall conclusion, therefore, is that as data becomes ever bigger, and as ever more noise is created, traditional solutions may not cut it.

“For many companies, scalable, dynamic, accessible and secure data storage is no longer a tempting alternative solution,” the report notes. “It is quickly cementing its place as a fundamental business requirement.”

Chris Patterson, NaviSite product management VP, said of the results: “This survey really highlights that the basic tenants [sic] of cloud computing are now top-of-mind for the enterprise, with location and security of data being a primary focus for IT executives.”

A recent report from Computing.co.uk has questioned whether the death knell is sounding for the autonomous data centre. But do you agree with the results of this survey?