We released the first results from our Bi-Annual customer survey last week and thought you would be interested in some of the highlights.
While price is still the most important purchasing criteria, 100 percent SLAs, enterprise-class security and 24X7 support are emerging as key differentiators in this second generation cloud.
Overall, while more than 50 percent of respondents came from the Internet and software companies, the cross-industry adoption of cloud computing was evidenced by the large number of verticals represented, including finance, hospitality, retail and media. Further evidence of the growing importance of cloud computing was also demonstrated by whom the decision makers are, with 39 percent C-level executives, 16% IT managers/directors and only 13 % software developers. Finally, it is clear that the cloud infrastructure as a service market is young, open and accessible with all respondents having tried multiple cloud providers before standardizing on OpSource Cloud.
Reliability and accountability are the number one cloud purchase criteria, with a 100% uptime SLA cited by 74% of respondents as being extremely important to their purchase decision. This isn't surprising as cloud adoption slowly moves from early adopters who are more likely to compromise to mainstream users who will not accept less than enterprise-quality service. Continuing this theme, security is top of mind with private networks and customizable firewalls important to more than half of the respondents. This shift to second generation cloud usage is also reflected in 63 percent of respondents identifying 24x7 live support as extremely important, with user configurable servers, API access and fast provisioning also cited as important or very important.
From an infrastructure perspective, industry-standard technologies from companies such as VMware, Cisco, Red Hat, Dell and Microsoft were extremely important to 44% of respondents, with almost 60% drawn to OpSource Cloud because of Windows/Red Hat Linux/CentOS server licenses being included in standard pricing. Cloud users are sending a message that they expect the find the same technologies in the cloud as they are currently using and that they will not trade lower cost for lesser capability. This will also continue to pressure Microsoft and Oracle, among many, to develop cloud licensing models for their databases and other services.
Finally, reflecting the importance of collaboration and community to the cloud generation, 70% of respondents utilized the OpSource Cloud community. This is particularly interesting as respondents see 24x7 live support and community as necessary for cloud adoption.
We'll continue to share as we gather this information. Thanks for reading and thanks for using the OpSource Cloud!!
