Application services help organizations ensure that their critical apps are always available, protect their business from unforeseen threats, and scale seamlessly around the world—no matter where those applications reside.
For our annual survey, we asked IT leaders across a range of industries, company sizes, and roles about how they’re using app services to address the challenges and opportunities presented by the ongoing process of digital transformation.
Key finding #1
•87% of respondents have multi-cloud architectures, driven by an app-first methodology.
Most organizations evaluate cloud decisions based on what environment is best for each application, an app-first methodology that leads to multi-cloud architectures for nearly 90% of respondents. While multi-cloud has evolved from an experiment to a key strategy, enforcing consistent security and ensuring reliable performance remain challenging for most organizations.
Key finding #2
•69% of respondents are executing digital transformation—and app data reigns.
With more than 2/3 of survey respondents engaged in ongoing digital transformation initiatives, IT organizations are reevaluating their structures, processes, and workflows to be more agile. As enterprises migrate applications to the cloud—and with them application data--the importance of data analysis and real-time threat analytics are emerging.
Key Finding #3
•56% of respondents are employing containers; gateways, app security, and availability are growing in importance.
The top application services currently deployed continue to be antivirus, network firewall, SSL VPN, and load balancing, but the list of services that respondents are planning to deploy includes some newcomers. The rise of containers has boosted the deployment plans for SDN and API gateways, as well as service mesh, while respondents also report deploying some newly developed cloud-native app services to increase scalability.
Key finding #4
•62% of respondents are deploying automation and orchestration initiatives— and developer-oriented solutions are leading the charge.
Automating and orchestrating development and deployment pipelines helps organizations keep up with the rapid rate of change required for applications. With silos breaking down and cross-functional teams speeding innovation, organizations are standardizing on developer-oriented solutions to implement CI/CD practices throughout IT.
To learn more about the survey findings, click here.
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