Nutanix, a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, has announced the findings of its sixth annual Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report, which measures global cloud adoption and related trends. The 2024 report reveals that 84% of UK respondents are adopting a “cloud smart” stance, placing the applications and workloads in datacentres, multiple clouds, the network edge and wherever they feel is the best match for them. 

In the UK, hybrid multicloud models are set to increase from 19 per cent today to 26 percent over the next three years with use of multiple public clouds set to increase from 11 per cent today to 46 per cent in one to three years, the research panel said. That latter number is well ahead of EMEA and global figures. The top five drivers of deployment platform choice are performance (55%), cost management (53%), data sovereignty/privacy (44%), ransomware/malware protection (33%) and flexibility (33%). Other factors included support for sophisticated data services such as backup and snapshots, ability to deploy AI optimally, and sustainability. 

Another key criterion was application migration support with 85% of the audience indicating that they swapped platforms for apps in the previous 12 months for reasons including costs, capacity management, data security, performance and access to innovation.

The survey also saw a burgeoning interest in IT’s role in sustainability with 55% saying that remote working had enhanced measures, 44% claiming to have modernised IT infrastructure for improved ecological results, and 43% saying compliance with sustainability measures had been a focus.

As for threats, ransomware remains a key concern with 50% of respondents listing it as a key C-level concern and 42% saying recovering from attacks can take days or even weeks.

"The research shows IT in a state of flux,” said Rowen Grierson, Senior Director and General Manager, UK&I at Nutanix. “Leaders have a host of factors competing for attention from the menace of ransomware to data, workload and application manageability, and the sustainability mandate. The solution many are pursuing is the ultimate flexibility of hybrid multicloud. This is a progressive and pragmatic position to hold but they also need the management consoles and controls to orchestrate and secure their estates." 

Key findings from this year’s report include: 

The UK will far surpass the global average in the next one to three years when it comes to use of multiple public clouds. Their use is forecast to increase to 46% over the next 1-3 years, compared to 26% globally.

Performance and cost are #1 & #2 drivers of infrastructure choice, higher than global and EMEA averages. The UK ranked data sovereignty and privacy as its #3 choice, behind performance and cost. UK focus on cost is worth a call-out, especially compared to the global and EMEA averages, where cost was placed last in the rank-order.

87% of UK organisations moved/migrated apps across environments in the last 12 months. IT decision makers in the UK indicate a unique set of priorities, ranking “capacity concerns,” and “cost concerns” as their top two reasons for application migration. Arguably, the UK is also an application migration laggard. Globally and across EMEA, 95% of organisations say they moved/migrated applications in the last 12 months. The UK is 8% lower than both global and regional averages, at 87%. Application migration seems to be less of a priority, and is executed for cost and efficiency reasons, rather than reasons associated with security and integration.

92% of UK organisations agree sustainability is a priority and 67% say their investment in sustainability efforts and technologies will increase in 2024. Similar to the EMEA average, the UK ranked remote working as a leading sustainability initiative focused on over the past year. IT modernisation came in at a distant second. 

Just 59% of UK organisations fully recover from ransomware attacks within hours. When looking at ransomware recovery by region, distribution of recovery times is relatively similar with slight differences in proportions of organisations able to recover within hours vs days. The UK indicates a significantly higher proportion of respondents saying their organisation recovered from ransomware attack within hours, at 59%. In fact, it was the highest incidence of this choice out of any country surveyed by a wide margin. 

For the sixth consecutive year, Nutanix commissioned a global research study to learn about the state of global enterprise cloud deployments and what organisation’s biggest IT infrastructure and cloud-related data management initiatives and challenges are. In December 2023, UK researcher Vanson Bourne surveyed 1,500 IT and DevOps/Platform Engineering decision-makers around the world. The respondent base spanned multiple industries, business sizes, and geographies, including North and South America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific-Japan (APJ) region.