Rocket Software Study Reveals 93% of IT Leaders Believe Hybrid Cloud Solutions are the Future of IT

Rocket Software released its 2023 Survey Report: What Keeps IT Leaders Up at Night?, which aimed to uncover what the biggest challenges facing U.S.-based IT leaders of large organizations and their approach to modernizing their IT department. The report revealed that IT leaders are losing sleep over improving overall IT performance (60%), data security (50%), process risk and compliance (46%), and the need to improve agility (41%). To overcome these challenges, IT organizations are turning to hybrid solutions to leverage the benefits of the cloud and the mainframe. An astounding 93% of respondents strongly agree with the sentence, “I believe my organization needs to embrace a hybrid infrastructure model that spans from mainframe to cloud.”

Many businesses, in some form or another, have been migrating their operations to the cloud for years now. But critical systems like the mainframe remain as critical as ever. Organizations can save money and resources-and drive efficiency-by connecting mission-critical content across mainframe, distributed, and cloud technologies with a hybrid approach. This enables organizations to modernize in place, leveraging their existing IT investments, rather than ripping and replacing. IT leaders clearly recognize this opportunity, with 65% of technology professionals working in organizations of more than 1,000 people cited implementing hybrid cloud strategy as a top priority.

In addition to hybrid cloud, businesses are turning to automation to remain competitive in today’s digital-first world. Many IT professionals are still spending much of their time manually managing and analyzing data, with 63% of respondents spending anywhere from 6-15 hours on manual data entry and analysis each week. Organizations are turning to automation to reduce the number of hours employees are spending on data entry and leveraging advanced technology to increase efficiency and agility and mitigate potential risk.

Additional key findings of the survey include:

• Measuring IT success is critical for IT leaders
  • Respondents noted that they measure success within their IT organization by increased efficiency (71%), optimized resources (67%), and reduced risk (63%).
• Risk management is critical, but IT leaders don’t feel confident in their organizations are prepared to adequately manage risk both on the mainframe and in the cloud.
  • Only 32% of respondents are extremely confident that they have the right technology, processes, and people in place to execute an effective approach to IT management.
• The current economic landscape has impacted what IT leaders prioritize.
  • Sixty two percent of respondents noted they have a much greater focus on efficiency due to the economic landscape. Respondents ranked faster DevOps processes, automated processes, and increasing overall output as the top three measures that would be most impactful for increasing efficiency.
• Software development is polarizing for IT leaders.
  • Respondents cited software development as both the most and least efficient aspect of their IT organization. This signals that while some organizations have optimized their software development practice, it’s still a hurdle for others.

“IT leaders are under enormous pressure to do more with less resources and build an IT department that can optimize an organization’s resources and reduce exposure to risk,” said Milan Shetti, President and CEO of Rocket Software. “Leaders understand that hybrid cloud solutions are the most effective way to leverage the benefits of both the mainframe and the cloud. By pairing the right technologies, processes, and vendors together, IT leaders can modernize their operations without disrupting day-to-day operations.”

To download the full report, click here.