INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud

Research from Nutanix reveals hybrid multi-cloud is the ideal IT model , but the financial services industry is slower to adopt .

Omar Malaeb , Regional Sales Manager , Enterprise at Nutanix

The research showed that fewer financial services organizations have adopted multicloud than any other industry surveyed , trailing the global average by 10 %. However , adoption is expected to nearly double from 26 % to 56 % in the next three years , in line with the global trend of evolving to a multicloud IT infrastructure that spans a mix of private and public clouds .

Among financial services ECI respondents , 31 % are still operating non-cloud-enabled three-tier data centers as their only IT infrastructure . They also reported having the lowest deployment of all industries surveyed in public cloud usage , with 59 % using no public cloud services compared to 47 % globally , likely due to substantial existing legacy investments in applications and the highly regulated nature of the industry .

The complexity of managing across cloud borders remains a major challenge for financial services organizations , with 84 % of respondents agreeing that success requires simpler management across multi-cloud infrastructures , and 50 % citing security concerns as a challenge to the multi-cloud model . To address top challenges related to security , interoperability and data integration , 82 % agree that a hybrid multi-cloud model , an IT operating model with multiple clouds both private and public with interoperability between , is ideal .

Financial services survey respondents were asked about their current cloud challenges , how they ’ re running business and missioncritical applications now , and where they plan to run them in the future . Respondents were also asked about the impact of the pandemic on recent , current , and future IT infrastructure decisions and how IT strategy and priorities may change because of it .

Key findings from this year ’ s report include :

• Financial services organizations face multi-cloud challenges , including security ( 50 %), integrating data across clouds ( 46 %) and performance challenges with network overlays ( 43 %). Given that nearly 78 % cited the lack of some IT skills to meet current business demands , simplifying operations is likely to be a key focus in the year ahead . However , IT leaders are realizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the cloud , making hybrid multi-cloud ideal according to the majority of respondents ( 82 %). This model will help address some of the key challenges of multi-cloud deployments by providing a unified cloud environment on which security and data governance policies can be applied uniformly .

• Application mobility is top of mind . Nearly all financial services respondents ( 98 %) have moved one or more applications to a new IT environment over the last 12 months , likely from traditional data centers to private clouds given the industry ’ s relatively low multi-cloud and public cloud penetration . Faster app development ( 43 %) was most often cited as the reason for the move , followed closely by security ( 42 %) and integrating with cloud-native services ( 40 %). Additionally , with a large majority ( 83 %) agreeing that moving applications to a new environment can be time-consuming and costly , it ’ s expected that the adoption of containers will rise in step with multicloud deployments to enable apps to run and move nearly anywhere quickly and easily . Among financial services respondents , 86 % said that containers will be important to their organizations within the next year .

For the fourth consecutive year , Vanson Bourne conducted research on behalf of Nutanix , surveying 1,700 IT decision-makers around the world . p

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