Considering recent rapid growth of public cloud usage and the airtime dedicated to if, what, and how to migrate workloads to cloud, it may seem like a mystery how organizations are using on-premises IT infrastructure. However, nine out of 10 organizations we surveyed say that on-premises infrastructure is a critical part of their hybrid cloud strategies.

IBM wanted to gain a deeper understanding of how enterprise IT decision-makers are leveraging on- premises to develop comprehensive hybrid multicloud strategies. In a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, we explored that exact topic. Below you’ll find a snapshot of what we learned, directly from 350 IT infrastructure decision makers at enterprises worldwide.

Organizations are selecting the right IT infrastructure strategies according to the jobs they need done — and on-premises infrastructure remains key.

Enterprises are making strategic decisions about what types of IT infrastructure to use for which purposes, and on-premises continues to play a key role. Ninety percent of the surveyed IT decision makers agree that on-premises infrastructure is a critical part of their hybrid cloud strategies.

When it comes to developing the right hybrid cloud strategies, organizations’ needs can vary greatly, but we found a few common considerations that IT decision-makers rely on including workload, security needs, and time-to-value. Specific to type of workload, IT decision makers anticipate that more than half of mission-critical workloads and 47 percent of data-intensive workloads will be run either on-premises or in an internal private cloud in two years.

Organizations are increasing investment both inside and outside of public cloud.

The majority of the surveyed IT decision makers (82 percent) expect their companies’ funding for public cloud to grow over the next 24 months. At the same time, 85 percent say their organizations are increasing funding for IT infrastructure outside of public cloud, suggesting that organizations continue to rely on both on-premises and private cloud as part of their technology stack.

Tapping the brakes on refreshes and upgrades can come at a cost.

Despite growth in investment outside of public cloud, most organizations (61 percent) have delayed an infrastructure refresh at least a few times in the last five years. These postponements are not without costs: Delayed IT infrastructure refreshes and upgrades expose enterprises to expensive vulnerabilities, software compatibility issues and a negative impact on customer experience.

Learn more

If you find this topic interesting, read the full study or watch the webinar: The Key to an Effective Hybrid Multicloud Strategy. In this webinar featuring my colleague, Lauren Nelson (Vice President and Research Director at Forrester), Lauren presents further findings from the research commissioned by IBM and what it means for IT decision makers.

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