ISG/EuroCloud Native study shows more than 70% of German IT decision-makers surveyed say their companies are adopting or interested in cloud-native solutions
More than 70 percent of German IT decision-makers surveyed by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm, say their companies have either adopted or plan to adopt cloud-native technologies, with a shortage of talent the main stumbling block to further adoption.
“Other primary advantages were ranked lower on the list of benefits”
The survey, conducted in September for EuroCloud Native (ECN), the cloud-native initiative of the industry association EuroCloud Deutschland, asked 200 German IT decision-makers about their current and planned use of cloud-native technologies. The study found 22 percent of respondents said their companies are already working with cloud-native approaches, while 27 percent are planning to get started in the next 12 months. A further 23 percent said they have concrete plans, without specifying when they plan to implement cloud-native technologies.
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“The survey results show that interest in cloud-native solutions is now widespread in Germany. Only 3 percent of respondents said that cloud-native is not currently on their agenda,” said study leader Heiko Henkes, director with ISG Research. “Despite the strong interest, most companies are still only in the initial implementation phase.”
Henkes noted the survey results demonstrate that companies are not fully recognizing the benefits of cloud-native solutions. Nearly half (48 percent) of the respondents said IT security is the top benefit of cloud-native technologies, which Henkes described only as an “indirect benefit.”
“Other primary advantages were ranked lower on the list of benefits,” Henkes said. They include more stable systems (40 percent of the mentions), shorter development cycles for software engineering (23 percent), and automatic scaling (9 percent), he said.
Skills shortage slows cloud-native adoption
Asked about obstacles to adoption, the most frequent answer respondents gave (37 percent) was a lack of skilled professionals to implement cloud-native solutions. This partially explains why IT security is the main focus of business benefits, said Felix Höger, board member at EuroCloud Germany.
“The majority of respondents are well aware of their companies’ limited perceptions of cloud-native benefits,” Höger said. “But in view of the worsening shortage of skilled workers, companies are forced to direct their focus on precisely those requirements that are currently most pressing for the business. IT security is definitely one of them.”
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The extent to which the skills shortage is impeding cloud-native adoption is shown by the response to the question of how strongly cloud-native procedures are already established in application development. The largest number of companies are opting for a go-slow approach, with 44 percent of respondents saying they will concentrate initially on adopting cloud-native technology for smaller applications, in the form of refactoring projects. Significantly fewer (27 percent) say they will implement cloud-native in new software development projects.
Market opportunities for specialized service providers
“The fact that most cloud-native users have so far taken advantage of only some of the capabilities of this technology means there are great market opportunities for specialized service providers, especially in the area of software engineering,” said Dr. Nils Kaufmann, director at EuroCloud Native.
Exploring the criteria companies use when selecting a provider, the survey found the most important consideration is for the provider to have a speciality in cloud-native technology, with 85 percent saying this is either an important or very important consideration. Next important is a familiarity with a broad spectrum of cloud platforms, with 83 percent of respondents saying this is important to ensure the establishment, operation and enhancement of multi-cloud solutions.
Eight member companies of the ECN were involved in the survey project and contributed their expertise to the design of the study: Alice&Bob.Company, CLOUDETEER, Cloudwürdig, Deepshore, GECKO (ein Mitglied der release42 Gruppe), globaldatanet, Kubermatic and tecRacer Consulting.
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