IT TRENDS REPORT 2016:

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1 IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION NORTH AMERICA

2 WHAT WE COVER IN THE REPORT IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION Introduction Key Findings Recommendations Full Survey Results

3 INTRODUCTION This report not only reveals the hybrid IT reality the vast majority of organizations are experiencing, but also explores the barriers to greater adoption of cloud technology. We are in the midst of a once-in-a-decade shift in the technology landscape. This reality has become known as hybrid IT: migrating some infrastructure to the cloud, while continuing to maintain some critical services onsite. At the center of this shift is the need to ensure always-on application performance regardless of location. The rise of business-critical applications has created this heightened awareness for performance. End-users expect a seamless experience, keeping them blissfully unaware of the changes happening in their IT environments. For IT professionals, their job has become increasingly pressured, complex and forever changed. This report not only reveals the hybrid IT reality the vast majority of organizations are experiencing, but also explores the barriers to greater adoption of cloud technology, as well as the challenges of migrating to the cloud and managing the performance of hybrid IT environments. 3 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

4 KEY FINDINGS IT infrastructures have evolved from traditional on-premises-only to a hybrid strategy that links internal and external IT services driven by the existence of the cloud. 9 of IT professionals say adopting cloud technologies is important to their organizations long-term business success; 27% say it s extremely important. Only 43% estimate that half or more of their organizations total IT infrastructure will be in the cloud within the next 3-5 years. 60% say it s unlikely that all of their organizations infrastructure will ever be migrated to the cloud. Only 9% have not migrated any of their organizations infrastructure to the cloud. Small businesses that have not migrated anything to the cloud went from 1 in 2015 to just 6% in IT professionals are faced with a dual mandate: increase efficiency through cloud services while also ensuring critical systems, databases and applications are secure. Top three hybrid IT benefits*: 1) Infrastructure cost-reduction 2) Increased infrastructure flexibility/agility 3) Relieving internal IT personnel of day-to-day management of some infrastructure 6 say security is the biggest challenge of managing current hybrid IT environments. Top three barriers to greater cloud adoption*: 1) Security/compliance concerns 2) The need to support legacy systems 3) Budget limitations Top three areas of infrastructure already migrated to the cloud: 1) Applications 2) Storage 3) Databases Top three priorities for continued or future migration*: 1) Applications 2) Databases 3) Storage *By weighted rank 4 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5 IT professionals require new skills, tools and resources to successfully drive the hybrid IT migration forward and enable their organizations to better meet business objectives. Only 27% are certain their IT organizations currently have adequate resources to manage a hybrid IT environment. Top five skills needed to better manage hybrid IT environments: 1) Hybrid IT monitoring/management tools and metrics 2) Application migration 3) Distributed architectures 4) Service-oriented architectures 5) Automation and vendor management 56% feel they have the level of support needed from leadership and the organization as a whole to develop/improve skills needed to better manage hybrid IT environments. 5 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

6 RECOMMENDATIONS As illustrated in the study s findings, IT professionals need to arm themselves with a new set of skills, products and resources to succeed in the hybrid IT era. They should consider the following recommendations: ESTABLISH AN END-USER FOCUS AND SERVICE ORIENTATION The ultimate goal of modern IT is to deliver greater Quality-of-Service (QoS) for end-users to ensure business productivity. To that end, minimizing friction across departmental silos will speed updates, changes, deployments and time-to-resolution for problems, all of which deliver a better end-user experience. IT professionals operating in hybrid IT environments should consider leveraging the principles of a DevOps approach to achieve faster and more provisioning choices, greater agility and organizational efficiency. Doing so will enable them to quickly make updates and changes to infrastructure, which makes IT services, whether on-premises or in the cloud, more agile, lean and scalable. OPTIMIZE VISIBILITY With both on-premises and cloud resources to manage in a hybrid IT environment, a management and monitoring toolset that surfaces a single point of truth across those platforms is essential. The normalization of metrics, alerts and other collected data from applications and workloads, regardless of their location, will enable a more efficient approach to remediation, troubleshooting and optimization. APPLY MONITORING AS A DISCIPLINE In a hybrid IT world rife with new complexities, monitoring can no longer be an afterthought. By establishing monitoring as a core IT function (a.k.a. monitoring as a discipline), organizations can benefit from a much more proactive IT management strategy, while also streamlining infrastructure performance, cost and security. 6 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

7 IMPROVE BUSINESS SAVVY As more IT services become provided by vendors, IT professionals must improve upon the following trifecta: business savvy for contract negotiation, technical expertise to understand and use the available cloud services and project management. These will all require the ability to effectively manage project budgets, workflows and deadlines; dissect terms and conditions; and understand service-level agreements. FOCUS ON DEVELOPING OR IMPROVING KEY TECHNICAL SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE Today s IT professionals need to reach across traditional roles and become polymaths in order to be successful in the hybrid IT world as they pivot across multiple domains. The most important skills and knowledge IT professionals need to develop or improve to successfully manage hybrid IT environments are service-oriented architectures, automation, vendor management, application migration, distributed architectures, API and hybrid IT monitoring and management tools and metrics. Learn more about how SolarWinds can help IT professionals better monitor and manage their infrastructure from on-premises to the cloud here. 7 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

9 DEMOGRAPHICS 257 IT practitioners, managers and directors in the U.S. and Canada from public and private sector small, mid-size and enterprise companies participated in the December 2015 survey. IT PRO S ROLE SIZE OF COMPANY number of employees 39% 7% 1 13% 11% FTE s FTEs FTE s FTEs FTEs FTE s FTEs FTE s FTEs FTE s FTEs FTE s FTEs FTE s 6% 13% 5% 13% 20% 5 Practitioner Practitioner Manager Manager Director Director IT consultant IT Consultant Other IT-related Other IT-related PUBLIC/PRIVATE SECTOR SPLIT (% mutually exclusive) 41% Public sector Public Sector Private sector Private Sector It s complicated 55% It's Complicated 9 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

10 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD IMPORTANCE OF ADOPTION 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 27% Extremely Important important 21% 2 30% Important % 4 Small Small Bus business Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus 23% Somewhat Important important 17% 3 21% 7% Not Important important at at All all 5% Not sure 0% In general, how important is adopting (the process of acquiring and implementing) cloud technologies to your organization s long-term business success? 10 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

11 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD FIVE BIGGEST BENEFITS 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Relieves internal IT personnel of day-to-day management of at least some infrastructure 59% 6 69% 70% #3 by weighted rank Infrastructure cost-reduction More service options that scale % % 7 #1 by weighted rank 8 Small Bus #5 by weighted rank Eliminates responsibility for maintenance of underlying infrastructure Works with &/or integrates into the latest technologies/features on the entire application stack 5 49% 4 47% 57% 57% 59% 73% Mid-Size Bus #4 by weighted rank Results in more reliable applications 27% 25% 2 33% Outsources IT expertise from cloud service providers 2 21% 25% 21% Small business Mid-size business Ease of updating and deploying new code for faster software fixes 41% 4 43% 39% Ease of building applications and collaborating with other teams 37% 33% 37% 4 Increases infrastructure flexibility and agility 67% 63% 65% 69% #2 by weighted rank What do you feel are the five biggest benefits of adopting cloud technologies? 11 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

12 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE MIGRATION 9% 3% 0% 9% % OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE MIGRATED TO CLOUD (OVERALL) 13% 2 0% 11% 1 6% BY BUSINESS SIZE: SMALL 1 11% 33% 3 31% 0% 0% migrated 0% migrated 1-9% migrated 1-9% migrated 10-2 migrated 10-2 migrated 25-49% migrated 25-49% migrated 50-7 migrated 50-7 migrated 75-99% migrated 100% migrated 75-99% migrated Not sure 100% migrated 5% 7% 3% 13% 2 BY BUSINESS SIZE: MID-SIZED 1 9% 3% 3% 29% BY BUSINESS SIZE: ENTERPRISE Not sure 3 3 What is your best estimate of the percentage of your organization s IT infrastructure that has already been migrated to the cloud (public or private)? 12 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

13 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE FORECAST 3% 7% 6% % OF TOTAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE IN CLOUD WITHIN NEXT 3-5 YEARS (OVERALL) 1 16% 6% 9% BY BUSINESS SIZE: SMALL 2 26% 19% 23% 23% 0% migrated 0% migrated 1-9% migrated 1-9% migrated 10-2 migrated 10-2 migrated 25-49% migrated 25-49% migrated 50-7 migrated 9% 5% 7% 3% 1 BY BUSINESS SIZE: MID-SIZED 1 1% 5% 1% 5% 17% BY BUSINESS SIZE: ENTERPRISE 50-7 migrated 75-99% migrated 100% migrated 75-99% migrated Not sure 100% migrated Not sure 29% 27% 30% 27% Within the next 3-5 years, what is your best estimate of the total percentage of your organization s IT infrastructure that will be in the cloud (public or private)? 13 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

14 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD LIKELIHOOD OF MIGRATING ALL TO CLOUD 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Very Likely likely 1 11% Somewhat Likely likely 1 21% 23% 2 Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus 1 Somewhat Unlikely unlikely 16% 25% 16% Very Unlikely unlikely 4 41% 39% 43% Not sure 7% 11% How likely is your organization to migrate its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud at some point in the future? 14 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

15 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD AREAS OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE MIGRATED 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Database 25% 31% 33% 45% Applications Security (Testing (testing aas) 15% 16% 1 13% 61% 61% 69% 7 Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus Storage 49% 49% 47% 53% Other 9% 1 Not Not yet yet migrated anything to cloud 5% Which area(s) of your organization s IT infrastructure have already been migrated to the cloud (public or private)? 15 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

16 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD PRIORITIES FOR FUTURE MIGRATION 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Database 55% 5 53% 6 #2 by weighted rank Applications 47% 55% 57% 60% #1 by weighted rank Small Bus Security (Testing (testing aas) aas) 39% 45% 46% 46% Mid-Size Bus #4 by weighted rank Storage % 4 #3 by weighted rank Other None 16% 19% 1 16% 1 19% 17% 11% Small business Mid-size business For those area(s) of your organization s IT infrastructure that have not been migrated to the cloud, which have the highest priority for future migration to the cloud? 16 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

17 BENEFITS & BARRIERS TO ADOPTING CLOUD FIVE BIGGEST BARRIERS TO CLOUD ADOPTION 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Budget limitations 37% 45% 56% 53% #3 by weighted rank Convincing Convincing business decision bus makers of need/benefit 33% 43% 43% 46% #5 by weighted rank Lack of skills needed to implement/manage Embracing the DevOps culture 15% 17% 27% 25% 20% 20% 23% 31% Small Bus Mid-Size Small Bus business Inability to prove ROI Disruption Disruption to bus/end to user business/end perf during user implementation performance during implementation % % 3 Mid-size business Need to Need continue to continue supporting supporting old, legacy old, legacy technology 63% % #2 by weighted rank Security/Compliance Security/compliance concerns 67% 7 75% #1 by weighted rank 80% Concerns over IT managing hetero/multi-vendor Concerns over IT managing hetero/multi-vendor environs environments 43% % Work required to move existing infrastructure 4 51% 50% 5 #4 by weighted rank Other What are/were your organization s five biggest barriers to adoption of cloud technologies? 17 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

18 CHALLENGES OF MIGRATING TO CLOUD BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACED WHEN MIGRATING 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Disruption to workflow/end-users 3 33% 37% 45% Acquiring new IT skills/it training Testing End-user training 3 37% 25% 33% 27% 27% 31% 25% 29% 41% 33% 23% Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus Re-architecting apps to work properly in cloud 45% 56% 5 59% Understanding SLAs/managing costs 29% 37% 41% 39% Gaining understanding Gaining understanding of dynamic, of constantly dynamic, changing constantly elements changing potentially elements associated potentially associated with w/cloud computing 29% 35% 35% 41% Gaining understanding Gaining understanding of new technology/vendors of new technology/vendors in space && if/how relevant to they my are to my organization 3 37% 31% 35% Other 5% 6% 5% Which of the following are the biggest challenges your organization experienced when migrating infrastructure to the cloud? 18 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

19 CHALLENGES OF MIGRATING TO CLOUD IMPORTANCE OF WORKING WITH BUSINESS LEADERS 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 4 Extremely Important important 35% 4 55% Important 3 35% 40% 3 Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus 13% Somewhat Important important 13% 23% 9% Not Important important at at All all 1% 5% Not sure 0% 3% How important is it to work with business executive leaders when developing and executing a cloud strategy? 19 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

20 CHALLENGES OF MIGRATING TO CLOUD THOSE INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING CLOUD STRATEGY 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% CIO/CTO/CISO 29% 45% 56% 70% Chief Officer(s) officer(s) other than CIO/CTO/CISO 25% 31% 31% 35% Line of business manager(s) 17% 1 21% 25% IT director(s) Director(s)/VP(s) Systems admin(s) Network admin(s) Storage admin(s) Virtualization admin(s) Developer(s) 2 19% 2 19% 29% 21% 23% 19% % % 46% 53% 55% 65% 73% 73% 76% Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus Engineer(s) 1 17% 23% 29% Architect(s) 2 26% 36% Cloud provider(s) % System integrator(s) 1 15% 15% Consultant(s) 19% 17% 20% 20% DevOps engineer(s) 0% 0% 3% 5% Analyst(s) 9% 16% Other 1% 0% None of the above 1% 0% 1% No cloud strategy Who was involved in developing your organization s cloud strategy? 20 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

21 REALITIES OF MANAGING HYBRID IT RESOURCES TO MANAGE HYBRID IT ENVIRONMENTS 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 27% Definitely 2 29% Maybe 25% 4 41% 43% 46% Small business Small Bus Mid-size business Mid-Size Bus 16% Not Sure sure 1 20% 17% Maybe Not not 1 9% Definitely Not not 3% Does your IT organization have adequate resources to manage a hybrid IT environment? 21 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

22 REALITIES OF MANAGING HYBRID IT BIGGEST CHALLENGES WITH HYBRID IT ENVIRONMENTS 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Compatibility issues with cloud provider 2 30% 3 35% Application migration Workload/responsibilities 37% 33% 40% 3 31% 26% 2 3 Small Bus Management & monitoring complexity Control over cloud-based services & apps 45% 45% 47% 45% 47% 49% 4 46% Mid-Size Bus Visibility into cloud-based services & apps 16% 29% 31% 37% New set of technical and/or management skills 35% 33% 35% 36% Security 51% % Embracing the DevOps culture Other 5% 15% 16% 1 15% Small business Mid-size business Which of the following do you feel are the biggest challenges associated with hybrid IT environments? 22 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

23 REALITIES OF MANAGING HYBRID IT SKILLS NEEDED TO BETTER MANAGE HYBRID IT 0% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Service-oriented architectures 2 26% 31% 36% Automation 30% 2 26% 33% Data analytics 21% % Application migration 37% 41% 45% 4 Small Bus Containerization & micro-services Mid-Size Bus Distributed architectures 3 29% 31% 33% API Vendor management % 25% 30% 26% 2 40% DevOps 21% 1 16% 25% Hybrid monitoring/management tools & metrics % 55% Coding & scripting 20% 21% 1 26% Other Already possess all skills necessary 0% 6% 7% Small business Mid-size business What are the most important skills you need to develop/improve in order to better manage a hybrid IT environment? 23 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

24 REALITIES OF MANAGING HYBRID IT SUPPORT FROM LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE SKILLS LEVEL OF SUPPORT FROM LEADERSHIP & ORGANIZATION TO DEVELOP SKILLS (OVERALL) 30% 56% BY BUSINESS SIZE: SMALL 37% 15% 49% 1 Yes No Not Not sure 2 BY BUSINESS SIZE: MID-SIZED 29% BY BUSINESS SIZE: ENTERPRISE 17% 60% 56% 15% Do you have the level of support you need from your leadership and the organization as a whole to develop/improve these skills? 24 SOLARWINDS IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION 2016 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

25 view the study online at it-trends.solarwinds.com The SolarWinds and SolarWinds & Design marks are the exclusive property of SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC and its affiliates, are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other SolarWinds trademarks, service marks, and logos may be common law marks, registered or pending registration in the United States or in other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and may be or are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

IT TRENDS REPORT 2016:

IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION SINGAPORE WHAT WE COVER IN THE REPORT IT TRENDS REPORT 2016: THE HYBRID IT EVOLUTION Introduction Key Findings Recommendations Full Survey Results INTRODUCTION