65% of Companies Report Cloud
Migration
is a Top Priority
IT Decision Makers Cite Complexity of Moving Legacy
Applications as a Major Challenge to Their Migration Efforts
Next Pathway Inc., the Automated Cloud Migration company,
today announced the results of a third-party study assessing the state of data
migration to the cloud in North America. Next Pathway polled nearly 1,000 IT
decision makers on their company's status in the cloud migration process and
what they perceive as benefits and challenges.
By a large margin (85%), survey respondents are planning to
up their IT budgets for 2021, with cloud migration a priority - 65% of
companies indicate the initiative is a top three area of technology emphasis in
2021. Looking at specific applications, IT decision makers cited migrating
their data warehouse to the cloud as the most important.
The key themes revealed in the survey include:
- Cloud migration is a journey - Most companies are in the
early stages of moving to the cloud and application migrations to the cloud
will be performed over multiple years
- Cloud migration requires careful planning and execution -
Companies recognize that moving multiple, complex applications require skilled
planning and technical solutions
- The cloud migration services market is expected to grow -
Due to lack of skilled internal resources, most companies plan to outsource
core cloud migration services
"The research confirms what we are experiencing in the
field," said Chetan Mathur, CEO of Next Pathway. "Companies recognize
that it's critical to migrate their data to the cloud - the study found that
close to 80% of companies trust their applications and data on the cloud more
than on-prem. But many have yet to begin their migration journey, due to the
complexity of moving multiple applications. But, while that can be true, it
doesn't have to be. Our tools simplify the end-to-end migration journey through
automation. From migration planning to code translation and cut-over, our tools
have automated the most complex steps in the migration journey, allowing
companies to move to the cloud faster and with less risk.
Cloud Migration Is a Journey
The research clearly demonstrates that it's early days in
terms of migration maturity. More than one-third of companies are at the very
beginning of their cloud migration journey and need help - in planning their
migration strategy, application migration and change management.
Even more telling, the vast majority of companies have yet
to take first steps. Less than 18% have begun their first cloud migration
project, and less than 13% have begun to migrate any of their applications to
the cloud.
Respondents recognize that cloud migration is not a weekend
project. An overwhelming majority (94%) agree that migrations to the cloud
happen over many months and potentially years. Nearly half (47%) of IT decision
makers plan to migrate 11 to 25 legacy warehouses to the cloud in the next 12
months, 27% will migrate 26 to 100, 10% will migrate more than 100, and 16%
will migrate less than 10.
Along with data warehouses, the applications that are a
priority to migrate to the cloud include BI/analytics tools (24%);
transactional applications, such as POS systems (21%); the data lake (10%); and
ELT/ETL platforms (10%).
Cloud Migration Requires Careful Planning and Execution
When asked 'What is the greatest challenge when migrating a
workload to the cloud?', the majority stated understanding data lineage in the
applications that they want to migrate (36%), followed by moving stored
procedures (27%), optimizing code post migration (14%), rewriting/repointing
ETLs (11%), and testing downstream reports (11%).
Respondents revealed three additional barriers to moving
legacy applications and workloads to the cloud:
- 33% are concerned about how to migrate without disrupting
critical business applications
- 22% said they are unsure how to plan their migration or
where to start due to application sprawl
- 5% reported they don't have the internal IT staff to manage
the cloud
It is clear from the survey, that companies need technical
assistance in helping them move complex applications to the cloud.
Cloud Migration Services Will Grow
The IT budgets for Cloud Migrations are substantial; 45%
will spend more than $5 Million on legacy migrations while 30% will spend over
$20 million and 10% will spend over $40 million. Given the volume of
applications that are ear-marked for a cloud migration (80% of respondents plan
to migrate more than 50 applications in the next 12 months), and the complexity
of the migrations, the cloud migration services market is expected to grow in
2021.
The most common cloud migration services to be outsourced
include: Data Migration (54%), Application Support and Management (45%) and
Service Management & Incident Management (47%), Workload Migration/Code
Translation (42%), and Infrastructure Management & Provisioning (43%).
Source: Next Pathway media announcement