Hybrid cloud is the ideal IT model for the majority of organisations – yet comparatively few have it in place today.

That was the key finding from a new report by hyperconverged infrastructure firm Nutanix. The study, the firm’s first Enterprise Cloud Index, polled 2,300 respondents and found that while enterprises plan to up their hybrid cloud usage, less than one in five (18%) said they were on the road to hybrid today.

The research found there needs to be more done than just a simple rollout. Public cloud is not a cure-all, with more than one in three (35%) respondents admitted to overspending their public cloud budgets. Key to getting initiatives right included matching applications to the right cloud environment; with visibility an interesting part of that. 88% of those polled said application mobility across any cloud would ‘solve a lot of problems.’

Yet for those who have already taken the plunge, success is tangible. 87% of respondents said hybrid cloud as an IT trend was having a positive effect on their business, with almost half (49%) saying their needs were met – higher than single public cloud users (37%). The concept is proving particularly popular in EMEA, with the report forecasting the region to overtaken both Americas and Asia Pacific in terms of adoption.

Nutanix has focused on this aspect as part of its strategy in 2018. The company acquired Netsil, a San Francisco-based app mapping, discovery and management software provider, back in March. In this instance, with multiple clouds, the rise of containers and microservices has meant many organisations lack visibility in key areas.

Plenty of M&A activity this year has been around the multi-cloud angle – Cisco buying Duo Security, Check Point Software acquiring Dome9 – but true hybrid cloud infers the need for private cloud, as well as on-premises applications and workloads that will stubbornly not fit in a cloud environment, and will take time to sunset.

“As enterprises demand stronger application mobility and interoperability, they are increasingly choosing hybrid cloud infrastructure,” said Ben Gibson, Nutanix chief marketing officer in a statement. “While the public cloud has increased IT efficiency in certain areas, hybrid cloud capabilities are the next step in providing the freedom to dynamically provision and manage applications based on business needs.

“The findings of this study reveal an important gap in the market,” Gibson added. “Organisations need IT talent to manage their hybrid cloud models, especially in the next 12 to 24 months.”

You can download the full report here.

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