The top cloud capabilities industry leaders want for sustained innovation

Cloud computing technologies help companies and governments to deliver essential services to their customers and citizens—never was this seen more than during the pandemic. From enabling the quick rollout of indispensable programs like unemployment assistance or access to COVID-19 testing online portals to leveraging on-demand infrastructure to meet enterprise compute needs, cloud empowers IT leaders to react and respond quickly under extreme pressure.  

With increasingly complex environments, which include a mix of proprietary and vendor solutions, legacy apps, geographically distributed, and resources living both on-premises or across multiple clouds, enterprises and agencies want to achieve more agility and improve cost efficiencies without getting locked into a single vendor in the future. At the same time, they are looking to leverage emerging technologies like edge solutions with the rollout of 5G.

Multicloud and hybrid cloud approaches, coupled with open-source technology adoption, enable IT teams to take full advantage of the best cloud has to offer. And a recent study from the International Data Group (IDG) shows just how much of a priority this has become for business leaders. 

Multicloud and hybrid cloud capabilities among ‘must-haves’ from cloud providers

After more than a year of uncertainty, organizations are applying lessons learned along the way as they assess the capabilities they need out of their cloud providers to keep pace with rapidly evolving requirements.  

The results of the Google-commissioned study by IDG, based on a global survey of over 2,000 IT decision-makers, shows that multicloud/hybrid cloud support and other cutting edge technologies, such as containers, microservices, service mesh, and AI-powered analytics, are now major considerations for enterprises when selecting a cloud provider. 

This is true at almost all companies, regardless of their digital maturity, including those who are fully transformed (digital natives), currently implementing strategy (digital forwards), or not yet implementing any transformation strategy (digital conservatives).

Organizations are progressively more committed to the cloud, especially those who are further along on their digital transformation journey. 

The survey found that the majority of digital natives (83%) and digital forward (81%) companies list multicloud/hybrid cloud support and cutting-edge technology as key considerations when considering a cloud provider. However, the same factors are still among the top considerations for over 70% of digital conservatives.

Another trend that goes hand-in-hand with multicloud and hybrid cloud support is the broader adoption of open source software solutions. In particular, open source technologies address barriers that arise from the need to modernize or integrate legacy systems and technologies—a primary pain point that impedes transformation efforts.  

While once viewed as unconventional, open source has become vital to unlocking cloud innovation, delivering the speed and rich capabilities needed to speed production and increase creativity. 

This link between cloud and open source is also reflected in the IDG study results.  While globally, 74% of global IT leaders say they prefer open-source cloud solutions, this number jumps to 82% at digital-forward organizations and 87% for digital natives. By comparison, the same is true for just over half of digital-conservative companies.

Freedom to innovate—anywhere

Google Cloud’s commitment to multicloud, hybrid cloud, and open source enables our customers to use their data as well as build and run apps in the environment of their choice, whether on-premises, in Google Cloud, on another cloud provider, or across geographic regions. 

To learn more about the IDG findings and how IT leaders are creating new ways to operate and innovate, download the full report.

Interested in how Google Cloud's commitment to multi/hybrid cloud and OSS empowers transformation and drives innovation?

Our distributed cloud services, including Anthos and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE),  provide consistency between any public and private clouds as well as a solid foundation for modernization and future growth, while allowing developers to build, manage, and innovate faster, anywhere. Anthos extends Google Cloud’s best-in-breed solutions to any environment, enabling teams to modernize apps faster and establish operational consistency. It can be used for both legacy and cloud-native deployments, running on existing virtual machines (VMs) and bare metal services, while minimizing vendor lock-in and meeting regulatory requirements. 

Google Cloud’s commitment to multicloud, hybrid cloud, and open source enable organizations to leverage their data and run their applications and services on the cloud or in the environment of your choice, rather than using a single vendor solution. We aim to support our customers’ journeys to reinvention, and we hope that together we can pave the way for whatever is coming next.