CloudHealth Technologies Publishes Results of Its Secrets of the Cloud Leaders Study

CloudHealth Technologies, the leading cloud management platform provider, and Cloud Technology Partners (CTP), a HP Enterprise Company, have announced the results of their annual ‘Secrets of the Cloud Leaders’ study which highlights the benefits to be gained from adopting an optimal cloud strategy and the problems faced by organizations that fail to get the formula right.

The first part of the study was conducted on 550 senior managers involved in cloud operations from global enterprises with more than 500 employees. The second part of the study used focus groups to probe deeply to uncover specific attitudes and experiences from enterprises as they move through the different stages of the cloud lifecycle.

One of the main aims of the study was to determine the key elements of an optimal cloud strategy, and areas where enterprises can make changes to enjoy the full benefits that the cloud offers.

The study breaks down cloud adopters into two distinct groups – Cloud leaders who have broken new ground and adopted an optimal cloud strategy and the laggards that typically fail to comply with enterprise standards and struggle with the management of their cloud deployments.

If the optimal cloud strategy is adopted, enterprises certainly reap the rewards and reduce costs and get better business value from the cloud. The majority of cloud leaders – 97% – appreciate that the cloud can fuel revenue growth, while 98% believe effective use of the cloud can give them a significant competitive advantage.

51% of individuals in the ‘cloud leaders’ category estimate that, on average, the cloud is causing a 51% year-over-year change in top-line revenue, and 95% of cloud leaders are able to quickly identify and mitigate cloud risk.

The results of the study clearly show that transparent, fully visible cloud deployments are an essential part of an optimal cloud strategy. 94% of cloud leaders said they had either moderate or complete understanding of their cloud workloads. Clearly defined roles and responsibilities for managing cloud infrastructure is also critical, and a key trait among 94% of cloud leaders as is cloud availability planning, which is conducted by 95% of cloud leaders.

Cloud leaders exert tight control over their cloud deployments and have much better visibility than laggards, who struggle with oversight, lack automation of cloud usage, and do not typically have reference architectures to ensure cloud architectures comply with enterprise standards.

72% of cloud leaders said their cloud usage was moderately or completely automated, compared with just 31% of laggards. Only 35% of laggards have automated cloud infrastructure deployment and only 46% have reference architectures. 90% of cloud leaders are moderately or continuously forecasting and performing what-if analyses for their cloud deployments.

“We are constantly working with customers to optimize their cloud programs and provide meaningful best practices, and so we went into this with a strong grasp of what takeaways would be most impactful,” said Melodye Mueller, VP of Marketing and Strategic Alliances, CloudHealth Technologies. “Then we gleaned additional insight from focus groups, which revealed that, while cloud leaders are at the head of the pack, even they don’t always have it all figured out.”

“Even businesses that are experiencing early success may have storm clouds on the horizon,” said Jonathan Bumba, CMO, CTP. “We know how crucial it is to solicit help and really understand cloud best practices – regardless of where you are in your cloud maturity journey.”

Author: Richard Anderson

Richard Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of NetSec.news