Even in the second decade of cloud computing, many enterprises are still struggling to migrate their most critical, legacy applications to cloud, according to The Stark Reality of Enterprise Modernization report by Skytap.
Cloud adoption has become a key trend to modernize enterprise IT, and the companies are aware of it. However, they are opting for difficult and arduous path to cloud, creating more challenges around technical complexity and recruitment.
The report, commissioned by Skytap and carried out by 451 Research, includes survey of 450 C- and VP-level technology leaders in the US, UK and Canada.
- Majority of enterprises consider on-premises apps as mission-critical
74% of respondents said that more than half of their business applications run in on-premise environments, and 71% said that these apps play mission-critical roles in running their business.
67% respondents were planning to migrate more than half of their apps to cloud within next 12 to 24 months. The companies believed that migration to cloud will help them achieve several benefits, including better customer responsiveness and greater competitiveness in market.
- Hyper-scale cloud least suited for mission-critical applications
Most of the cloud-native apps for businesses are run in hyper-scale cloud. But the hyper-scale cloud is considered least-suited for mission-critical applications like ERP, CRM, and data analytics. Respondents cited this a main challenge to cloud migration.
Further, 50% of respondents said that a lack of knowledge, skills and experience as a primary challenge in managing existing infrastructure.
The solution, of course, is to migrate the business applications to cloud, but several companies are using same cookie-cutter approach to force these apps into cloud. As per the report, they are relying on most time-extensive, burdensome, and complex approaches to get core applications to cloud, by refactoring and rewriting those apps.
“Enterprises are motivated by the clear benefits to leverage cloud services to modernize their IT environment,” said Jay Lyman, Principal Analyst, 451 Research. “However, the sheer mass and complexity of on-premises application portfolios, combined with the propensity for some to choose the most arduous path to cloud by re-writing and re-architecting, creates a painful skills challenge that requires a more patient, progressive approach to achieve success.”
