The true value of data is now definitively and inarguably recognised. Yet, the question around to what extent organisations decide to invest in this digital goldrush is an important one.

Equally as important is the question of exactly where organisations will invest. Of course, there’s plenty of momentum towards the public cloud. But even though it is being seen as a valuable and versatile tool, there is noise and competing claims when it comes to ‘the best’ place to run enterprise workloads.

Freedom of choice

It’s clear that today’s IT leaders enjoy abundant choice in how and where they run applications. But this is creating both complexity as well as opportunity, as businesses seem unsure of which workloads to put where.

>See also: 5 essentials for managing hybrid cloud environments

Pure Storage asked over 9,000 IT leaders for their views on workload placements as part of its 2017 data economy report, and found that:

• 47% of applications run in traditional on-premises IT.
• Public clouds like AWS, and Microsoft Azure account for around 23% of applications.
• Private cloud is also the choice for 23% of applications.
• On average, 19% of applications are consumed as SaaS.

When it comes to planned infrastructure investments, public cloud accounts for the biggest proportion of budget over the next 18-24 months. 65% of businesses plan to increase their use of public cloud services, with 51% anticipating making more use of private clouds, and 33% seeing their use of traditional on-premises infrastructure growing.

>See also: The reality of the public cloud – as good as you think?

But the fragmentation is more obvious when looking at how businesses are actually using their cloud services, and the workloads they’re running on them. The research findings make interesting reading when you look at the lack of uniformity in the choices businesses are making:

Top 3 public cloud workloads

1. IT & management infrastructure (37%).
2. Communications solutions (36%).
3. Application testing & development (34%).

Top 3 on-premises workloads

1. IT & management infrastructure (52%).
2. Application testing & development (42%).
3. Business applications (41%).

>See also: What are the true security risks to cloud infrastructure? 

Top 3 private cloud workloads

1. Backup and disaster recovery (42%).
2. Business applications (33%).
3. Communications solutions (33%).

Top 3 SaaS workloads

1. Backup and disaster recovery (31%).
2. Business applications (30%).
3. Communications solutions (29%).

There’s a similar level of variation when it comes to cloud storage. Around 43% is run on traditional on-premises hardware, with less on public cloud (23%) and private cloud (22%)
Again, public cloud storage is tipped to increase in 58% of businesses, with private cloud (50%) and SaaS (45%) set to grow over the next 18-24 months.

>See also: Hybrid cloud adoption dominates

Look forward with confidence

To thrive in the changing digital landscape it’s critical that organisations are making decisions that are right for their individual circumstances. They need to be confident that their data and applications are delivering value, without the worry that the platform they reside on isn’t fit for purpose, or flexible enough to deal with changing workloads.

Despite the fragmentation currently evident, IT teams are exercising choice and considering how to deliver the best outcome for their business workloads. For many, the ease with which fast, secure and flexible all-flash storage can now be integrated with public, private and hybrid cloud workloads, as well as those running on premise, is making a significant difference and is only adding to that choice.

Sourced by James Petter, VP EMEA, Pure Storage