Cloud migration is a key barrier to digital transformation

Research from CSI finds that issues with cloud migration is still one of the most common reasons cited as holding businesses back, but part of the issue is based on misconceptions about the cloud.

Wednesday, 11th September 2019 Posted 5 years ago in by Phil Alsop

Research from Enterprise Performance Partner, CSI, has today found that 85% of UK businesses cite a lack of ability to migrate legacy apps to the cloud as impacting their business negatively, despite 83% viewing their digital transformation as a key priority.

In addition to this, the study undertaken by Sapio Research on behalf of CSI, found companies are being held back on their transformation journeys by infrastructure issues too. 55% stated an inability to update legacy infrastructure as a barrier to change, and 41% say an overburdened network and capacity issues as a problem. They are also finding it hard to sort and structure data to use it for business advantage.

Simon Payne, CEO, CSI explains, “The digital age promises vast opportunities, providing major productivity gains in the way that businesses operate, and network transformation and cloud adoption is a vital part of the digital transformation journey. But with so many businesses citing difficulties when it comes to migrating legacy apps and problems with their infrastructure it’s clear that business has a long way to go to take advantage of the digital age.

“There is a fundamental misconception that legacy apps can’t be migrated to the cloud which isn’t true. Using our private CSI PowerCloud enterprises can connect their legacy IBM i and AIX systems, and their legacy business apps, directly to the world’s most popular public clouds.

Running applications in the cloud allows an organisation to create value faster, take advantage of newer and more powerful technology and deliver consistent and compliant workloads all the while keeping the focus on its business objectives. But CSI estimates that up to 80% of IBM i workloads still run on-premises, locking them out from the advantages of the cloud.

CSI has proved it’s possible to put interconnected legacy and new workloads in a hybrid cloud, on a pay-as-you-go basis, so all enterprises can benefit from the advantages of cloud - helping them be the disruptor, not the disrupted.

The research also found other barriers to the cloud included perceived security issues (36%), unclear guidance from FCA regarding security governance (27%) and red tape around data movement (27%).

These issues and misjudgements are holding businesses back in ways that threaten growth potential. 28% say it’s taking too long to manage business critical apps, and 31% of IT teams feel they are too busy dealing with downtime issues. 33% believe they aren’t making the most efficient decisions with IT, and 28% say it’s costing too much to manage their infrastructure.