Businesses are migrating some or all of their workloads to the cloud. Discover the 10 cloud migration trends for 2023.
Microsoft has just published research on the keys to modernisation and migration to the cloud in 2023. We review the top 10 trends highlighted in the report and reflect on why moving to the cloud can increase business profitability.
More and more companies are choosing to migrate part of their infrastructure to the cloud. Cloud environments and services offer a series of advantages over on-premise services or environments. These benefits are seducing many corporations and multiplying investment in cloud environments. However, before investing in cloud environments, companies should take into account the 5 economic mistakes that most companies make when investing in cloud infrastructure.
The truth is that companies' commitment to the cloud is not fortuitous. Cloud environments provide scalability, flexibility, integration possibilities, interoperability, security and long-term cost savings that on-premise infrastructure cannot compete with.
Companies that move to the cloud increase their competitiveness through benefits such as reduced time and personnel costs, better IT integration, more effective control of data and applications, as well as better data security options that can prove decisive in the event of a disaster.
According to Microsoft's new report on enterprise modernisation and cloud migration in 2023, the pandemic caused by Covid-19 significantly increased the number of companies that decided to migrate part of their workloads to the cloud. Now, these companies are modernising their workloads to improve scalability, business continuity and to optimise costs.
According to Microsoft, it is in times of economic uncertainty that organisations are most likely to migrate to the cloud.
Companies decide to invest in cloud environments to:
- Reduce costs
- Grow revenue
- Modernise and digitise
- Be more prepared for the future
However, the migration and modernisation of cloud environments also poses challenges. The main obstacles organisations face when moving part of their assets to the cloud are:
- The complexity of cloud-cloud integrations
- Difficulty in refactoring applications
- Complications when integrating cloud environments with legacy back-end systems
On the other hand, while most organisations opt for cloud environments with the intention of reducing costs, the truth is that poor management of assets and workloads stored in the cloud can end up causing cost overruns:
Here are the top 10 cloud migration trends for 2023 from Microsoft's latest research.
You can also download the full Microsoft report below:
Top 10 Key Cloud Migration Trends for 2023
1. More than half of enterprises will move or expand their cloud resources in the next 3 years.
According to Microsoft's new report, 62% of organisations already have a modernisation or cloud migration strategy in place by 2023.
Among these:
- 27% have a modernisation and migration strategy.
- 20% have a migration strategy only.
- 14% only have a modernisation strategy.
2. Why are companies moving to the cloud?
According to the report, companies decide to migrate part or all of their processes and workloads to the cloud for 3 reasons:
- Enabling artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT and edge computing.
- Improving their disaster recovery capabilities
- To be able to enjoy the capabilities of the best available services
3. Wider migrations
Enterprise cloud migration plans are beginning to include secondary and advanced tasks driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtualization and systems management.
Beyond the environment, organizations are beginning to adopt tools and technologies that enable them to migrate more operations to the cloud to optimize the efficiency of their processes.
4. More and more companies are adopting a "cloud-only" strategy
In addition to companies moving part of their processes and workloads to the cloud, there is also an increasing number of companies migrating all of their applications, processes and workloads to the cloud.
According to Microsoft, by 2023, 61% of companies with a cloud migration and modernisation strategy plan to implement a "cloud-only" approach in the next 3 years. Of these, 23% already have all or virtually all of their workloads and apps in the cloud right now.
5. Hybrid and multicloud clouds
In recent years, cloud technology has evolved, providing companies with new possibilities and formats. These include hybrid clouds and multi-cloud environments.
The advantages of hybrid and multi-cloud environments are clear: greater flexibility, agility and adaptation to business objectives. In addition, corporations can leverage these environments to deploy complementary clouds to help them achieve specific goals.
According to a survey launched by Microsoft in 2022, 86% of business leaders plan to increase investment in hybrid or multi-cloud environments in the next few years. In addition, 95% of them say that these types of environments have already helped them drive business success.
6. 82% of organisations say cloud migration drives digital transformation
The vast majority of businesses believe that their migration and modernisation efforts will help them move towards digital transformation and greater asset protection.
According to business leaders, the top 3 benefits of cloud migration are:
1. Scalability
2. Security and compliance
3. Improved Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery
7. The public cloud is also growing
Microsoft's research predicts significant growth in public cloud.
According to the report's findings, the number of enterprises that have moved more than half of their workloads to the public cloud will grow by 74% by 2023, compared to 18 months earlier.
- In the last 18 months, 27% of companies have migrated more than half of their workloads to the public cloud.
- In the next 18 months, 47% of companies are expected to have moved more than half of their workloads to the public cloud.
8. Most of the workloads that will be migrated are not critical
Companies around the world plan to move a diverse set of workloads to the cloud over the next year. However, the vast majority of these workloads are not mission-critical.
- 64% of the workloads to be migrated in the next 18 months are non-critical.
- Only 36% are considered critical.
According to Microsoft, so far, the majority of workloads migrated to the cloud are linked to:
- Network and IT security
- Email, collaboration, teams and productivity
- Application development processes (DevOps)
However, in the coming year, the 3 main workloads will be related to:
- Data analysis, advanced analytics and business intelligence
- Server virtualisation (VM)
- System administration and orchestration
9. Most organisations with a migration and modernisation strategy prefer to be self-sufficient
70% of companies implementing a migration and modernisation strategy say they prefer to be self-sufficient by using self-service tools and relying on the documentation available from cloud providers.
10. On-premise investment will not decline
Despite the growth in investment in cloud environments, investment in on-premise infrastructure is not expected to slow down in the near future.
As we have already seen, most companies are migrating part of their workloads to the cloud, building a mixed corporate environment that combines the capabilities of both environments.
According to the Microsoft study, the healthcare, retail and e-commerce, and manufacturing industries are the industries that will make the largest investments in on-premise in the next 3 years.
Looking forward to more?
In this article we have summarised the 10 most relevant cloud migration trends for the coming year. However, you can extend the research and discover more insights with the Microsoft report.
Download the full report published by Microsoft here:
