Coronavirus leads to legacy modernisation cloud boost

Two new studies have highlighted growing demand among IT leaders to move legacy technology to the cloud.

More than three-quarters (77%) of the IT executives surveyed by Upwave for Lemongrass said their primary motivations for migrating their legacy systems to cloud infrastructures were securing their data, maintaining data access, and saving money. In a data-driven world, securing and analysing that data is crucial, and cloud providers offer a wide range of tools and services to do those jobs.

The survey found that almost 60% of legacy projects were on time and more than 60% came in at the right cost. Almost 70% of respondents said the cost of a typical legacy-to-cloud migration fell between $100,000 and $250,000, and 57% said projects rarely come in under budget.

However, 42% said difficulty in training end-users on the legacy systems now running on cloud infrastructures was the top issue for them, and 34% said it was a lack of in-house skills that made running those legacy systems most difficult.

According to Lemongrass, prime among those skills was database management and programming, as cited by nearly half the respondents, with other key skills needed being artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Meanwhile, the third annual Nutanix enterprise cloud index report, which measures organisations’ plans for adopting private, hybrid and public clouds, said there had been a significant decline in public sector organisations running their own datacentres.

In 2019, the Nutanix enterprise cloud index stated that 53% of global public sector organisations exclusively ran traditional, non-cloud-enabled datacentres. In 2020, that percentage dropped to 22%.

Over the next five years, the public sector expects a 20 percentage-point drop in legacy datacentre installations and a 43-point increase in hybrid cloud deployments, according to Nutanix’s research.

Vince Lubsey, CTO at Lemongrass, said: “Enterprises are anxious to reap the benefits of moving legacy systems to the cloud. They understand there are challenges, but the benefits far outweigh the obstacles. The key to success is following best practices, proper training and time management. It also helps to have the guidance of an experienced partner to create the required cloud operating model.”

Andrew Puddephatt, director – UK public sector at Nutanix, said: “While IT modernisation efforts within the public sector have traditionally been hampered, not least because of strict regulatory challenges, the findings of the Enterprise cloud index report are very promising, with IT now being viewed more strategically within public sector organisations.

“The global pandemic certainly accelerated this push for modernisation as public sector organisations looked to maintain seamless operations and not fall foul of regulatory requirements by harnessing hybrid cloud models to enable and support the requirement for increasingly digital workplaces.”

The IT leaders surveyed in Lemongrass’ research recommended that organisations allow sufficient time for migration projects (54%) and ensure they have sufficient financial resources and people resources (52%).