Cloud helps manage internal IT infrastructure, too: survey

There has been no shortage of discussion -- and teeth-gnashing -- about whether cloud and Software as a Service solutions or approaches will replace or supplant internal IT infrastructure. What needs to be considered as well, however, is the fact that cloud/SaaS-based tools are being employed to help manage internal IT as well.

That's the gist of a recent survey of 273 senior IT executives by Saugatuck Technology, which finds that demand for Cloud/SaaS-based solutions to help manage IT infrastructure is building – especially for complex, hybrid, Cloud and on-premises workloads. The Saugatuck survey was underwritten by Dell.

What jumps out is this finding:

"Greater than 50% of enterprises plan on using cloud or SaaS-based IT management solutions to manage their IT environment. Most workloads will be on-premised based, internal private cloud, or hybrid/integrated workloads.  A smaller percentage of enterprise respondents [36%] will be using cloud-based tools to manage 'cloud-based-only' workloads."

Top solution areas enterprise IT executives believe that SaaS or cloud-based IT management tools can contribute to their ability to manage their IT environment include data backup (61%), email systems (61%), and communication, e.g., notification, event management (56%).  Close to half also see potential for development and test environments (46%).

Close to half, 46%, see SaaS and cloud-based IT management tools as a way to reduce IT infrastructure costs, and 36% see it as a way to achieve faster deployments. Another 23% see it as a way to ease upgrade challenges. Interestingly, these numbers show that more than half of respondents don't quite see these potential benefits yet.

At a high level, collaboration, SaaS, IaaS and PaaS will all achieve greater than 70% adoption within the next three years, Saugatuck says.

A majority (46%-61%), are already aware of SaaS or cloud-based IT management solutions that can help them manage their IT environments, the survey also finds. "It is reasonable to expect enterprise buyers will acquire SaaS-based IT management tools, given the aggressive cloud acquisition timeframes expressed," the study's authors conclude.