Covid-19 has been pushing more companies towards using online or cloud-based applications. That’s according to a cloud apps adoption survey of 559 engineering and IT professionals online at the manager level and above in the US, UK, France and Germany.
Of the survey respondents, nearly 3 in 4 expect a second wave of Covid-19 impact on their operations, and more than half — 51% — are planning to move more applications to the cloud to prepare for it.
The cloud apps adoption survey was conducted in May 2020 by the popular database company MariaDB, in partnership with Propeller Insights. MariaDB is one the top five most used databases globally, with availability on all of the leading cloud platforms, and 75% of Fortune 500 companies running it.
Cloud apps adoption accelerating for some, slowing for others
By 2022, 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, with only 5% ever considered for repatriation to on-premises, according to Gartner, Inc. That’s reflected in the MariaDB survey, with 40% of respondents currently accelerating their move to the cloud.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses’ cloud adoption plans has led to increases in related decisions. In the survey, 51% of respondents said they are planning to move more applications to the cloud, 39% expect to be 100% in the cloud, and 32% are starting a move to the cloud. Cloud based PBX providers are the next logical step in new business technology. You get all the benefits of an office line, while being able to be completely in the cloud while working remotely.
On the flip side, 24% of all respondents said they are slowing down their move to the cloud because of Covid-19’s impact. The US indicated the highest percentage of slowing (36%), while the UK had the lowest (12%).
Specific to cloud databases, when asked what would prevent them from going “all-in” (choosing all that apply), the results showed:
- Security: 73%
- Price: 46%
- Compatibility: 45%
- Scalability: 35%
- Migration: 33%
- Lack of multi-cloud offering: 21%
Pandemic round 2: Permanent work from home
Three quarters — 74% — of survey respondents are expecting new challenges because of a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. To that end, they are implementing a variety of technology changes to prepare for future shutdowns.
The two strategies being implemented most are (choosing all that apply): Set up remote access for all employees (57%) and move more applications to the cloud (51%).
And almost half — 46% of respondents — say they are implementing “forever” work-from-home (WFH) strategies.
European respondents favor implementing remote access setups and permanent WFH strategies as the top two priorities to combat the fallout from the pandemic.
US respondents agree on the top priority of favoring remote access setups, but differ on the second priority. Those respondents said that moving applications to the cloud was #2.
In-person technology events: See you next year
One of the early consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic was the cancellation of in-person corporate and technology events. While an overwhelming number of respondents miss these in-person events, 70% said the earliest they would consider attending an in-person technology event would be in 2021.
73% of respondents indicated missing corporate and technology events “very much” or “extremely.”
26% of respondents would consider attending an in-person technology event this year (2020), while 70% indicated the earliest they would attend would be in 2021.
US respondents were more evenly split compared to Europeans. In the US, 41% said they would consider an in-person event this year while 58% said next year would be the earliest.
95% of respondents will change their ongoing technology event behavior as a result of Covid-19, with 25% saying they will only attend online events, 69% attending more online events, and 1% not attending any events at all.
“The survey data surfaces trends we have been seeing with our MariaDB SkySQL cloud database business over the last few months, such as the increased movement to the cloud due to Covid-19’s global impact,” said Franz Aman, CMO, MariaDB Corporation.
“Companies realize that many structural changes are here to stay and future disruptions — be it another pandemic or an entirely different disaster — need to be anticipated and planned for. The outcome is an acceleration to the cloud for mission-critical applications.”
You can find the cloud apps adoption study’s full results here with charts.
You can see the latest news on cloud-based apps here on MobileVillage., and more on coronavirus tech trends and solutions on our Covid-19 news page.
