U.S. Enterprises Flock to Public Cloud During Pandemic

ISG Provider Lens report finds companies looking for the agility and flexibility of the cloud as employees continue to work from home, and events stay online

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Public cloud adoption has grown rapidly among U.S. enterprises during the last year, with the COVID-19 pandemic driving up demand for cloud-based services, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Solutions and Services Report for the U.S. finds American enterprises still embracing a work-from-home model for many employees, creating a need for applications and infrastructure based in the public cloud. In addition, the pandemic has driven most events to virtual settings and has led to a massive rise in online shopping.

“Cloud infrastructure is an ideal ecosystem for virtual events and a work-from-home model because it provides the agility and scalability required to provide a better customer and employee experience,” said Jan Erik Aase, director and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research.

The global infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market grew by 14 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, the report notes, citing recent data from the ISG Index. Through the first nine months of 2020, IaaS was up nearly 20 percent, to $17.8 billion, the ISG Index reported.

The ISG Provider Lens report also finds more U.S. enterprises are focused on cloud-native transformations, instead of the more traditional lift-and-shift model. While lift-and-shift transitions allow enterprises to move selected applications to the public cloud, it often leads to refactoring or re-architecting the workload for better performance, ultimately raising the cost of the transition. Instead, many enterprises are now moving applications to the cloud in a cloud-native way, with container technology and microservices enabling enterprises to take full advantage of the flexibility and agility the public cloud offers.

In addition, the report sees many public cloud providers partnering with hyperscalers and focusing on hyperscaler certifications to demonstrate their cloud expertise. Some service providers also are developing specialized, industry-specific transformation capabilities to cater to industry verticals.

The report also finds many enterprise customers embracing a multi-cloud approach. Each public cloud has unique features and capabilities, and some applications work better on one public cloud over another. Enterprises and service providers now understand the strengths and weaknesses of each hyperscaler, and they are moving their workloads accordingly.