13 November 2018

Organisations that delay multi-cloud adoption will become “increasingly irrelevant”, according to a new study from F5 Networks.

Report contributor Eric Marks says the multi-cloud ramp-up is a “wake-up” call for internal IT teams to “get their act together”.

In its Future of Multi-Cloud (FOMC) report, the cloud security and solutions provider aims to highlight game-changing trends and chart adaptive best practice over the next five years. The study was conducted by Foresight Factory which drew on its proprietary bank of more than 100 trends and original research across 25 regional markets.

Citing RightScale’s State of the Cloud Report released earlier this year, the FOMC says 81 per cent of global enterprises claim to have a multi-cloud strategy in place.

“The multi-cloud ramp-up is one of the ultimate wake-up calls in internal IT to get their act together,” says FOMC report contributor and VP of cloud consulting at CloudSpectator, Eric Marks. “One of the biggest transformative changes is the realisation of what a high performing IT organisation is and how it compares to what they have. Most are finding their IT organisations are sadly underperforming.”

F5 believes new levels of service specialisation will increasingly allow enterprises to find the best tools for their specific needs, enabling seamless scaling and rapid service delivery innovation.

Its study says that the technologies set to drive this transition include serverless architectures as well as AI-powered orchestration layers, and configuration tools to aid data-driven decision-making. The researchers adds that fear of vendor lock-in is expected to continue as a key justification for multi-cloud investments.

The report goes on to caution that the multifaceted logistics of monitoring multiple cloud services, containers, APIs and other processes can be daunting and inhibit technology uptake. It says a significant skill gap also exists to handle this added complexity both now and into the future.

“Across the world, available workforces are not keeping with the pace of innovation, with potentially damaging results to business productivity and digital transformation capacity,” states the FOMC. “Knowledge silos or lack of collaboration within businesses may further exacerbate multi-cloud apprehension.”