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The State of the Cloud, 2024
Businesses are Leveraging AI and Cloud for Continued Success
29-Jan-2025
Global
Customer Research
KACD-01-00-00-00
IT_2025_1272
According to business respondents to the 2024 Frost & Sullivan Global Cloud User Survey, artificial intelligence (AI) has now surpassed cloud as the most important aspect of digital transformation. As such, companies continue to build hybrid, multicloud environments to support AI deployments that meet business goals, such as revenue growth, improved customer experience, and operational efficiency. In the 13th annual survey of IT decision-makers responsible for cloud implementations, respondents representing a range of industries, company sizes, and regions of the world share their perceptions, plans, and behaviors related to cloud infrastructure, choice of a public cloud provider, data growth, and managed services.
Notable findings include:
• Businesses view hybrid and multicloud environments as critical to business success, with 73% of respondents saying that a successful,
competitive business requires a strategic, seamless hybrid or multicloud environment.
• Nearly 57% of business applications are cloud-native, with 43% remaining in legacy infrastructures. The primary reasons that businesses keep
some apps on premises are related to security, sustainability, and the leverage of existing investments.
The survey results offer enterprises and IT service providers a glimpse of the near future for the cloud market.
Author: Karyn Price
Research Objectives and Methodology
Respondent Profile
Respondent Profile (continued)
Key Findings
Technologies Important to Achieving Business Priorities
C-Suite Influence on IT Investments Increasing
Security, Costs, New Technologies Top Organizational Challenges
Businesses Prefer to Pay for Cloud Using Tier-Based Subscriptions
Most Businesses Seek to Optimize Cloud Costs Through Rightsizing
ESG Remains a Priority, But Knowledge and Costs Hinder Initiatives
Cloud Adoptions Enjoys Continued Growth
Largest Businesses Embrace Public and Hybrid Clouds
Healthcare Dominates Public Cloud
Hybrid and Multicloud Computing at the Heart of Digital Transformation
Larger Companies More Likely to See Cloud as Critical
Legacy Apps Remain in 2024
Businesses Modernize Apps Using Many Methods
Security, Sustainability, Existing Investments Top Reasons to Choose Traditional Infrastructures
Edge Computing Slows, but Planned Usage Remains
Large Businesses Lead on Edge Deployments
Data Processing, Optimized Infrastructure, Improved Control at the Edge
Managed Service Provider Usage, Plans Decrease
Partners Assist with Areas of Greatest Challenge
New Tech Integration, Faster Time to Functionality are Leading Benefits
Growth Opportunities Fuel the Growth Pipeline Engine™
Why Is It Increasingly Difficult to Grow?
The Strategic Imperative 8™
Benefits and Impacts of Growth Opportunities
Next Steps
List of Exhibits
List of Exhibits (continued)
Legal Disclaimer
List of Figures
- Business Priorities, Global, 2024
- Importance of Technologies to Achieve Business Priorities, Global, 2024–2025
- Roles Driving the Adoption of New Technology Solutions, Global, 2023–2024
- Organizations’ Top Challenges, Global, 2024
- Businesses’ Preferred Method of Paying for Public Cloud, Global, 2024
- Organizations’ Preferred Methods of Controlling Cloud Spend, Global, 2024
- Organizations’ ESG Mindset and Challenges, Global, 2024
- Cloud Infrastructure Adoption and Plans, Global, 2024
- Cloud Adoption by Company Size (Number of Employees), Global, 2024
- Cloud Adoption by Industry, Global, 2024
- Organizations' Mindset about the Cloud, Global, 2024
- Organizations' Mindset about the Cloud by Company Size, Global, 2024
- Organizations’ Share of Cloud-Native vs. Legacy Applications, Global, 2024
- Percentage of Legacy Apps that will be Migrated to Cloud by 2026, Global, 2024
- Approaches to Modernizing Legacy Applications, Global, 2024
- Organizations’ Reasons for Choosing On-Premises or Colocation Infrastructure, Global, 2024
- Edge Infrastructure Adoption and Plans, Global, 2024
- Edge Adoption and Plans by Company Size (Number of Employees), Global, 2024
- Reasons Businesses Choose Edge Deployments, Global, 2024
- Third-Party Service Provider Usage and Plans, Global, 2024
- Type of Provider Engaged, Global, 2024
- Cloud Services for Which Businesses Choose a Third-Party Provider, Global, 2024
- Benefits That Organizations Experience Using Managed Cloud Services, Global, 2024
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