The adoption of cloud computing has become a pervasive trend across industries as organizations (regardless of size or sector) increasingly turn to the cloud to find solutions for a variety of challenges presented by the modern world.

The cloud offers scalability, flexibility, cost-effectiveness and accessibility, and it enables businesses to scale their operations up or down as needed, reducing the need for significant upfront investments in infrastructure.

Transitioning to or relying on the cloud is not devoid of its own set of challenges, however. Security and data privacy concerns come to mind – rightly so,F because storing sensitive information on external servers raises potential risks.

But Parallels, a sub-brand of the global technology company Alludo, found two interesting challenges in its 2023 Hybrid Cloud Survey, conducted among IT professionals.

The first is that many IT professionals (62%) find that a lack of cloud management skills halts company growth, an issue that is more prevalent in mid-size companies (72%). And among large enterprises, 18% don't maximize the public cloud's potential. The primary reasons for this underutilization include concerns about the complexity of migrating to the public cloud, a lack of in-house cloud expertise, and difficulties in recruiting IT talent. These factors collectively hinder some organizations from fully capitalizing on the benefits of the public cloud.

“IDC’s xOps Census and Forecast 2022 to 2027 shows that the current gap of approximately 1.5 million IT professionals worldwide has already made it challenging for small and medium businesses to get the resources they need,” said Shannon Kalvar, IDC (News - Alert) research director. “That gap will expand to almost 8 million IT professionals worldwide by 2027 due to retirements and a lack of new entrants, forcing the industry to adopt entirely new ways of getting work done.”

That raises the question: What can organizations do to overcome this challenge?

There is no clear-cut answer to that, but what companies are doing is increasing their use of hybrid cloud infrastructure. Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents (64%) had already implemented a hybrid approach, and 38% of all respondents plan to further embrace a hybrid cloud approach in the next year.

A hybrid cloud infrastructure combines public and private cloud environments, allowing organizations to blend the benefits of both. This setup enables companies to retain sensitive or critical data and applications on their private cloud while utilizing the public cloud for scalability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness. It offers the ability to seamlessly move workloads and data between the two cloud models based on specific needs, optimizing resource allocation.

These advantages make the hybrid cloud a preferred choice for organizations adapting to flexible work arrangements and seeking a balance between on-premises and cloud-based solutions.

“While it’s true that cloud use is not a ‘one size fits all’ proposition, it is clear that a hybrid cloud model is preferred by companies,” said Prashant Ketkar, Chief Technology and Product Officer, Alludo. “By using a more incremental cloud adoption approach, supported by easy-to-manage software solutions that are enhanced with automation and security, IT professionals can realize the flexibility and cost savings they want from the cloud, without specialized cloud management expertise.”