EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
As organisations continue to grapple with the complexities of moving applications and data across environments , research highlights the growing importance of hybrid multicloud infrastructure . Security and innovation were the top drivers for moving applications from one environment to another over the past year . As AI takes centre stage for businesses , respondents identified increasing investments to support AI strategy as their # 1 priority , followed closely by investment in IT modernisation .
Whether because of AI , sustainability , or security imperatives , IT organisations are facing ever-increasing pressure to modernise their IT infrastructure quickly . 80 % of ECI respondents are planning to invest in IT modernisation , with 85 % planning to increase their investments specifically to support AI .
Hybrid multicloud continues to emerge as the infrastructure standard of choice because of the flexibility it provides to support traditional VM and modern containerised applications and movement between clouds and on-premises .
Ransomware protection is top of mind for both CXOs and practitioners but most organisations continue to struggle in the wake of attacks . Ransomware and malware attacks will remain existential threats to modern enterprises , with the cat-and-mouse game between malicious actors and enterprise security professionals set to continue throughout 2024 .
Yet , data protection and recovery remain a challenge , as 71 % of ECI respondents who experienced a ransomware attack reported taking days or even weeks to restore full operations . To help address this , 78 % of organisations say they plan to increase investments in ransomware protection solutions throughout this year .
As organisations seek equilibrium driven by security and innovation , application and data movement remains a complex challenge . Enterprise workloads – including their applications and data – often find their way into the IT environment which best suits their needs , whether that environment is an on-premises data centre , the public cloud , a smaller edge location , or a mix of all three .
Hybrid multicloud infrastructure deployments will become an infrastructure standard . 90 % respondents are taking a cloud smart approach to their infrastructure strategy – leveraging the best environment , example data centre , public cloud , edge for each of their applications . Given the pervasiveness of this approach , it is no wonder that hybrid and multicloud environments have become the de facto infrastructure standard .
Furthermore , over 80 % of organisations believe hybrid IT environments are most beneficial to their ability to manage applications and data . Most importantly , this is now becoming an executive priority , with nearly half of respondents noting that implementing hybrid IT is a top priority for their CIO .
This diversity of application placement is part of the reason 95 % of ECI respondents say they moved applications from one environment to another over the past year , with security and innovation as the top drivers for this movement . Enterprises should expect application and data movement to remain constant , and plan infrastructure choices accordingly – emphasising flexibility and visibility .
Today , organisations face significant roadblocks when it comes to executing complex application migrations , with 35 % respondents saying workload and application migration is a significant challenge given their current IT infrastructure . p
LEE CASWELL , SVP PRODUCT AND SOLUTIONS
MARKETING , NUTANIX
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