Organisations are looking to do more with their existing information technology investments while also making more use of the cloud, according to a survey by Red Hat, a US-based enterprise software provider.
The company asked more than 400 customers from around the globe, just over half of them large and medium-sized enterprises, about their priorities for 2018, including top challenges, budget allocation, cloud deployment strategies, and plans for emerging technologies.
The previous year's survey revealed that most respondents had embarked on a digital transformation and were looking to shift their investments to modern infrastructure and applications. The Red Hat Global Customer Tech Outlook 2018 has noted a small shift in mindset and strategy. Among its conclusions:
IT spending is shifting. While spending in 2017 focused on optimising existing IT, most respondents in the 2018 survey are planning to spend more of their budgets in the following areas: delivering cloud infrastructure and services (36%); integrating data and applications (76%); and developing and deploying modern applications (30%).
Cloud initiatives growing and maturing. As in 2017, funding for cloud infrastructure was identified as a top focus for investments among survey respondents (36%), with hybrid and multi-cloud approaches favoured. Most organisations surveyed (61%) also now define their cloud infrastructure strategies as hybrid, as compared to last year, when it was a split between hybrid (30%) and private (38%).
While hybrid cloud is the hot strategy, some respondents are still going beyond hybrid coordination to workload portability across more than one cloud concurrently, using multi-cloud strategies for their applications, said Red Hat. About 37% are moving towards either deploying or planning to deploy a multi-cloud infrastructure in 2018.
Modernising existing IT investments still a top challenge. While most organisations in 2017 said they were tackling digital transformation, this year one priority for many respondents is addressing the challenges associated with optimising and modernising existing IT investments, which 42% of respondents ranked as a top challenge in 2018. Additional top challenges include improving security (47%), automating processes (36%), and integrating data, processes and apps (26%). Additionally, 31% of respondents consider modernising existing IT investments a funding priority this year.
Modernise first, transform second. The survey also highlighted the fact that not all organisations perceive digital transformation in the same way. Some take a "modernise first, transform second" approach, which is not necessarily a bad thing, Red Hat said.
"Everyone is talking about digital transformation, but are most organisations executing on those initiatives? Surprisingly, our data showed that only 19% of respondents plan to execute on digital transformation initiatives in 2018," it said.
Because "modernising existing IT" remains a top challenge (42%), this appears to show that respondents are focusing on optimising investments and creating a more agile infrastructure before moving ahead with full digital transformation.
"That said, we also see evidence that organisations are implementing the building blocks of digital transformation -- with investments in integration, cloud infrastructure and modern apps. This is perhaps a good indication that among enterprise customers, this is simply how they are delivering more modern services now -- no transformation tag needed."
Emerging technologies are just that -- still emerging. More than 50% of respondents reported they have no plans to conduct research or implement artificial intelligence or machine learning solutions in 2018.
