HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey1 of 17Introduction

HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey:

Welcome to the Multi-Cloud Era

Our first-ever State of Cloud Strategy Survey uncovers some very clear results: a common multi-cloud operating model has become the de facto standard for IT organizations of all shapes and sizes to deliver on digital transformation. IT organizations are investing significant resources in multi-cloud deployments, and those investments are already paying off. At the same time, however, companies are still dealing with a variety of multi-cloud challenges and dependencies.

This site presents the key insights revealed in the 2021 HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey of more than 3,200 technology practitioners and decision makers from the HashiCorp opt-in contact database (see more about the survey in the Methodology section).

5 Numbers to Remember

76

%

Are already multi-cloud

34

%

Call digital transformation a top multi-cloud driver

57

%

Say skills shortage is a top cloud challenge

47

%

Say security is a top cloud inhibitor

46

%

Say COVID-19 has not sped cloud adoption

Multi-cloud is the way to go. It’s that simple.  — survey respondent

Multi-Cloud Grabs a Strong Foothold

Multi-cloud is now an everyday reality. Already, ¾ of survey respondents employ a multi-cloud architecture (more than one cloud, public or private). In two years, almost 9 in 10 will do so.

The prevalence of Cloud Centers of Excellence (CCoE) is also growing, especially among organizations with larger cloud budgets. Almost ⅔ of companies with annual cloud budgets of $5 million or more operated a CCoE, compared to just 40% of all respondents.

Multi-cloud adoption is important for us ... It allows us to experiment with emerging technologies that [are] only available at certain providers while running the main load at the other provider.  — survey respondent

Cloud/multi-cloud adoption

  • Multi-cloud
  • Single cloud

Not surprisingly, multi-cloud adoption skews heavily toward larger enterprises, but that gap closes over time:

Multi-cloud adoption by organization size

79%

Small businesses

(<100 Employees)

84%

Midsize companies

(101 - 5,000 employees)

94%

Large enterprises

(>5,000 employees)

AWS Remains the Top Cloud Provider

AWS holds a commanding cloud market share across every region, industry, and organization size. Despite worries about vendor lock-in, that dominance isn’t expected to fade.

AWS was significantly less popular among consumer goods/retail companies: 27% said they had no plans to use the market leader in the next two years.

Cloud providers used/planned to use

AWS: 88%, Microsoft Azure: 77%, Google Cloud: 64%

Use of non-AWS cloud providers is much higher outside North America, for example:

Planned Alibaba Cloud usage in 2 years

North America: 9%, Latin America: 12%, Europe: 14%, Asia-Pacific: 27%

Multi-Cloud Is Working

Just as with multi-cloud adoption, multi-cloud success correlates with organization size:

Has multi-cloud helped achieve your business goals?

53% responded yes, 18% responded no
Multi-cloud success by organization size

42%

Small businesses

50%

Midsize companies

64%

Large enterprises

We are a global company with 100K+ employees. No one cloud offers everything we need (services, regions, government requirements, etc.).  — survey respondent

Multi-Cloud Brings Multiple Benefits, Led by Digital Transformation

While digital transformation was the most-often-named multi-cloud driver, respondents found benefits in a wide range of ways.

What are the business and technology factors driving your multi-cloud adoption? [Select 3]

Digital transformation

34%

Avoid single cloud vendor lock-in

30%

Cost reduction

28%

Scaling

25%
Digital transformation ranked highest among respondents from:

50%

Large enterprises

51%

Latin America

43%

Asia Pacific

41%

Financial services

Multiple public cloud adoption enables us to overcome the limitations with single vendor lock-in, and allow us to take competitive benefits of different vendors.  — survey respondent

Multi-Cloud Is Tightly Connected to Other Modern Technology Initiatives

In large organizations, multi-cloud usage is typically correlated with other initiatives such as infrastructure as code, container orchestration, application delivery automation, secrets management, service mesh, and more. And adoption of many of those correlated technologies is expected to almost double in the next year.

Current status of key modernization initiatives

Infrastructure as code

60%
33%

Application delivery automation

53%
39%

Container orchestration

52%
38%

Secrets management

53%
39%
Complete
Planned/In Progress

Service mesh adoption is expected to grow 2.5x — from 11% today to 28% in a year (with another 21% in process).

Cost, Skills Shortages, Workflow Issues Among Top Cloud Challenges

As cloud and multi-cloud become the standard, there are still inhibitors to cloud adoption, and challenges to operationalizing multi-cloud. Behind cost and security concerns (more on this in the next section) and skills shortages was workflow problems as a result of complexity.

What are the primary inhibitors to your cloud program? [Select 3]

Cost concerns

51%

Security concerns

47%

Lack of in-house skills

41%

Hybrid cloud complexity

35%
Cost concerns seen as a cloud inhibitor, by company size

58%

Small businesses

45%

Large enterprises

Specific cloud inhibitors and challenges vary widely across regions, industry, and company size, as well as by component of the technology stack.

Top cloud inhibitors by industry

Software or services

Cost

54%

Financial services

Security

59%

Public sector

Lack of skills

53%

Healthcare and biotech

Security

52%

Consumer goods and retail

Lack of skills

51%

Entertainment and media

Cost

60%

Telco

Cost

53%

Top Challenges to Operationalize Multi-cloud

When it comes to the challenges hindering operationalizing multi-cloud, respondents had similar concerns.

What are the most significant challenges hindering your ability to operationalize multi-cloud? [Select 3]

Skills shortages

57%

Inconsistent workflows across cloud environments

33%

Silos/poor collaboration/complex processes

29%

Budget constraints that affect headcount

27%

Infrastructure not used efficiently or shared

27%

Difficulty managing security and governance

25%

Cloud Challenges Across Infrastructure Layers

Cloud challenges are consistent across industries and geographies, as well as provisioning, networking, application deployment, and security components — with staff/skilling issues cited as the top concern for each.

What are the most significant cloud challenges for each component of your cloud efforts?

Staff/skilling issues

26%

Manual processes

15%

Speed/pace of change

11%

No real-time visibility/insight

9%

Staff/skilling issues

26%

Insufficient tooling

12%

No real-time visibility/insight

11%

Speed/pace of change

11%

Staff/skilling issues

19%

Speed/pace of change

18%

Manual processes

16%

Siloed teams

11%

Large enterprises (37%) were more than twice as likely to be concerned about teams working in silos than were small businesses (17%).

Multi-Cloud Security Concerns: Lack of Skills and Tooling Top the List

Cloud security remains in the spotlight, and is both an adoption driver for multi-cloud and a barrier. As noted above, almost half of respondents named security concerns a top-three cloud inhibitor, but security and governance were mentioned in the top three multi-cloud drivers by 16% of respondents. Below are multiple data points that reveal the specific security issues respondents are worried about.

What are your top cloud security concerns? [Select 3]

Data/privacy protection

40%

Data theft

33%

Regulatory compliance

31%

Software vulnerabilities

28%

Threat detection and remediation

26%

What’s keeping organizations from solving those security threats? Again, staff/skilling issues top the list of security issues, but insufficient tooling was a bigger issue for security than for other cloud components.

What are the most significant cloud challenges for the security component of your cloud efforts?

Staff/skilling issues

26%

Insufficient tooling

12%

No real-time visibility/insight

12%

Speed/pace of change

11%

Manual process

11%

Siloed teams

8%

Pressure to change

6%

Shift to remote work

6%

Shadow IT

5%

Uncontrolled costs

3%

Cloud services allow more granular security controls.  — Security engineer survey respondent

Cloud Is Not Just a Pandemic Response

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc around the world, and driven a huge boom in internet usage. But its effect on multi-cloud and other technology adoption has been surprisingly complex. The pandemic was cited as a multi-cloud driver by just 7% of respondents, yet more than half said COVID had accelerated their cloud or multi-cloud adoption. However, 46% of respondents said COVID didn’t impact their cloud efforts. Notably, 39% of respondents said COVID caused them to use more open source software.

High COVID-19 impacts were more than twice as prevalent in large enterprises (14%) than in small organizations (5%). Only 32% of large enterprises said COVID-19 did not impact their digital transformation timelines, compared to well over half of small businesses (58%).

COVID's cloud impact

  • Moderate impact (accelerated 1-2 yr)
  • High impact (accelerated 2+ yr)
  • Low impact (accelerated 6-12 mo)
  • No impact

Has COVID-19 accelerated your organization's cloud or multi-cloud adoption in these areas?

Infrastructure as code

49%

Container orchestration

41%

Compliance and governance

33%

Network infrastructure automation

33%

Self-service infrastructure

32%

Companies Are Investing Big Money in Multi-Cloud

A third of respondents are spending more than $2 million a year on multi-cloud initiatives, and 6% are investing more than $50 million a year.

North American organizations are relatively big spenders — 40% of respondents spend more than $2 million a year and 18% spend more than $10 million per year. But around a third of respondents in Latin America (37%), Europe (32%), and Asia-Pacific (30%) spend less than $100,000. Looked at by industry, software and services companies keep tighter reins on their budget, with 33% spending less than $100,000 on their multi-cloud initiatives. That may not be as surprising as it sounds, though, as this still may represent significant spend for startups and smaller organizations.

What is your organization's annual multi-cloud budget?

  • <$100K27%
  • $100K → $2M40%
  • $2M → $10M18%
  • > $10M15%

Cost concerns were cited by more than half (51%) of respondents as a primary cloud inhibitor, yet cost reductions were cited by 28% of respondents as a multi-cloud driver.

Managing Cloud Spend Isn’t Always Easy

Cloud cost equations can be almost as complex as the technology itself. 39% of respondents said their organization overspent on the cloud, but much of that overspend was expected. And 9% of organizations spent less than projected.

Did your organization’s 2020 projected cloud spend align with your actual cloud spend?

12%

Underspent

49%

Within budget

39%

Overspent

Factors that caused 2020 cloud overspending

  • Shifting priorities
  • Unexpected event: COVID-19
  • No guardrails to manage resources
  • Lack of tooling standardization
  • Unexpected event: not COVID-19
  • Acquisition
  • Other

Healthcare (19%) and telcos (18%) reported the most unexpected overspending, while the financial services (32%) and media (31%) firms had the most expected overspending.

Even more revealing, the biggest single drivers of cloud overspending were accelerated priorities and COVID-19. But for more than a quarter of organizations, cloud overspending was due to a combination of the lack of guardrails to efficiently manage resource utilization and lack of standardized tooling.

The bigger the organization's cloud budget, the more likely they were to overspend: Almost half (46%) of companies budgeting $2 - $10 million on cloud overspent, compared to just a quarter (27%) of companies budgeting less than $100,000.

Open Source Tools Are the Most Popular Option

Building on open source software is the most popular choice for infrastructure automation tools across all infrastructure categories. But running OSS security tools yourself — while still the number one option — is significantly less popular than for other cloud components. The security arena also had the highest percentage of respondents who buy commercial tools.

Infrastructure automation tools used or planned to use

  • Build from scratch, run it myself
  • Build on open source, run it myself
  • Use open source as a service
  • Buy commercial tools, run it myself
  • Buy commercial tools as a service
  • Build from scratch, run it myself
  • Build on open source, run it myself
  • Use open source as a service
  • Buy commercial tools, run it myself
  • Buy commercial tools as a service
  • Build from scratch, run it myself
  • Build on open source, run it myself
  • Use open source as a service
  • Buy commercial tools, run it myself
  • Buy commercial tools as a service

The market for security tools skews toward commercial products, with 25% of respondents buying and running commercial tools themselves and another 18% using commercial tools as a service.

Infrastructure Automation Tools Are Critical for Almost Everyone

Nearly all respondents ranked infrastructure automation tools “important” or “extremely important” to overcome challenges required to operationalize their multi-cloud environments. As you’d expect, companies spending more on cloud believe infrastructure automation tools are more important. Financial and entertainment/media firms found these tools more important than did public sector organizations.

How important are infrastructure automation tools for your organization?

  • Extremely Important
  • Important
  • Somewhat Important
  • Not Important

Provisioning and application deployment tools lead the way

Almost every organization is already using or planning to use infrastructure automation tools across all four cloud operations components, but provisioning and application deployment tools are the most widely used.

What categories of infrastructure automation tools are in use or planned?

  • Currently use
  • Plan to use
  • No plans to use
  • Currently use
  • Plan to use
  • No plans to use
  • Currently use
  • Plan to use
  • No plans to use

Tool usage is also highly correlated with cloud spending. For example, provisioning tools are currently used by just 65% of companies spending less than $100,000, but by 79% of companies spending $2 million or more — a pattern repeated to a lesser extent across all four cloud components. Regionally, European respondents consistently claim higher tool usage, while those in Asia-Pacific report the lowest tool usage. Software/services firms are the most avid users of networking tools (62%) while only 47% of the public sector use them. Security tools are most heavily used in the financial industry (56%), while only 41% of public sector respondents use them.

The need for infrastructure automation tools is even stronger for larger organizations and those who spend the most on their multi-cloud efforts.

Consistent and Automated Management Can Help Use Cloud Resources Effectively

Consistent and automated management helps companies operationalize their multi-clouds in many ways. And the top choices did not vary much across geographic regions or company size.

How would consistent and automated management help operationalize multi-cloud? [Select 3]

Better utilization of cloud resources

48%

More flexible IT infrastructure

41%

Self-service infrastructure

35%

Better utilization of cloud resources was cited as helping cloud operations by almost half (48%) of all respondents, and more than half of consumer/retail shops, healthcare companies, telcos, and entertainment/media firms.

Which Vendors and Technologies are Strategic Players in the Cloud Operating Model?

Moving to a cloud operating model is a complex process relying upon multiple vendors and key technologies. But which ones do organizations see as most strategic? In addition to the companies and technologies listed below, Microsoft, Atlassian (and its Bitbucket source code repository hosting service), Elastic, and New Relic earned significant numbers of write-in votes.

Apart from public cloud vendors, what other vendors or technologies are most strategic?

HashiCorp

73%

Kubernetes

65%

GitHub

54%

GitLab

32%

VMware

28%

RedHat

25%

ServiceNow

23%

Splunk

22%

Cisco

21%

Datadog

20%

MongoDB

19%

Palo Alto

15%

F5

14%

Google Istio

12%

Snowflake

10%

NetApp

7%

Note: Survey participants were practitioners and decision makers who had opted in to HashiCorp emails. A high ranking for HashiCorp tools isn’t surprising, but provides a useful benchmark for other responses.

The most popular cloud operating model tools were HashiCorp Terraform (25%) and Kubernetes (18%).

Methodology

The 2021 HashiCorp State of Cloud Strategy Survey was conducted in February of 2021. HashiCorp reached out to ~300,000 people for whom we had opt-in email addresses. To encourage responses, we offered an incentive drawing.

We received 3,205 responses from around the world, though not all respondents answered all 34 questions.

Industry

Software or services

51%

Financial services

15%

Public sector

8%

Healthcare or biotech

6%

Consumer goods or retail

5%

Entertainment or media

4%

Telco

4%

Transportation

3%

Energy or utilities

3%

Hospitality or travel

1%

Agriculture or food production

1%

Job Role

  • Practitioner
  • Technical decision-maker
  • Business decision-maker
  • Other/no response

Location

  • North America
  • Europe
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Latin America
  • No response

Company size

  • < 100 employees
  • 101 - 5,000 employees
  • >5,000 employees