Survey: Not all organizations are all-in on public cloud Contrary to expectations most organizations surveyed in a recent survey are moving some workloads off-site and back to the public cloud. IDG, a research firm, recently published the results of its online survey “The State of IT Modernization 2020”, which was conducted in late last year. The report highlights that cloud strategy changes last year included adopting multicloud strategies (49%) and initiating cloud-native initiatives (50%). 84% of respondents also reported that they had moved selected workloads from a cloud provider to a non-cloud or alternative location. Database, Web site/Web applications, dev/test, BI/data warehouse/data analysis are the most popular workloads that were moved from public clouds. IDG stated that this is due to the challenges of “determining optimal workload placement within today’s multicloud or hybrid cloud landscapes.” According to IDG, hybrid cloud is again strong in this report. IDG reports that 64 percent of organizations who have completed their initial IT modernization initiatives have changed from an all-private or public cloud strategy to a mixed cloud approach. This highlights the trial-and error that many companies go through to find the best cloud path for them. The report also includes:

In 2020, the top three IT modernization challenges will be establishing governance strategies and procedures, optimizing IT operating models, integrating data centers, and defining and optimizing IT operating model.
Public cloud overruns are common. Fortunately, 69 percent of those affected have taken steps to reduce them.
Lack of automation capabilities can slow down application modernization.
The top obstacles to IT modernization in 2019 were competing priorities (44%), outdated processes and tools (443%), outdated infrastructure (40%) and skills gaps (38%).
More than 8 out of 10 organizations (84%) have outsourced or started to outsource cloud management to a managed service provider. All levels of IT modernization are prone to the use of managed services.
It is crucial to adopt managed services at all stages of the IT modernization process. An average of 95 per cent of respondents stated that they have outsourced one or more IT functions through a managed service provider.