With layoffs running every which-way in the industry, a shrug of the shoulders and blaming a “technology slowdown” is not surprising. Yet, industry leaders are bulking up counter to this narrative and plan to divulge further into cloud technologies according to a new report from Aryaka.
Shifting from traditional IT to cloud
A wishy-washy economy has played a role in network and security teams’ investments. Still, 98% of surveyed leaders indicated they plan to increase their investment in cloud services, despite ongoing economic uncertainty, according to the report.
A key in this pursuit is the rapid shift to cloud services for hybrid workers, which Gartner forecasts to encapsulate 39% of the global workforce by the end of this year.
The security and network complexities associated with hybrid work make a case for themselves as to why modern leaders are upping cloud investment and acceleration — 99% of IT leaders surveyed agreed hybrid work changed how they manage networks and security, said Aryaka.
“The cloud is the new center of enterprise data, but it also provides technology leaders with what they need most in this environment of relentless change — flexibility," said David Ginsburg, Aryaka’s vice president of marketing. "With complexity induced by securing hybrid work environments and dependence on cloud services, IT leaders have altered their expectations when considering network providers.”
More leaders are valuing cloud technology and infrastructure as an investment strategy rather than a budget headache. Almost half (47%) will be accelerating their adoption of cloud and network services, and 28% are selecting specific cloud and network services in an attempt to save costs, according to Aryaka. Only 19% of leaders believe the economy will slow its cloud adoption.
This shift from traditional IT to cloud reveals the need for ongoing cloud investments, so enterprises can properly align themselves for the “workforce’s adoption of hybrid and remote models along with the continued need for networks to connect people, applications and enterprises to datacenters, edge devices and cloud infrastructure,” according to the report.
“CIOs, CISOs and IT leaders are preparing for this [economic] uncertainty by investing in and adopting architecture, policies and technologies that converge networking and security,” said Matt Carter, Aryaka’s chief executive officer (CEO). “These disciplines are critical to business success.”