Virtana Research: 94% of IT Leaders Report Cloud Storage Costs Are Rising; 54% Confirm Storage Spend is Growing Faster Compared to Overall Cloud Costs

Virtana released its latest independent research report, The State of Hybrid Cloud Storage 2023. The report, part of the company’s fourth annual multi-cloud survey, asked 350 IT leaders in the US and UK-all cloud decision-makers-about their hybrid cloud storage usage and costs. The report found that 84% of respondents want a large portion of their storage to remain in the cloud-two-thirds (55%) of which want as much storage in the cloud as possible but not at the expense of cost and efficiency. 

Storage costs are rising

As cloud storage costs continue to rise, most respondents (69%) said that storage takes up more than one-quarter of their total cloud costs, while 23% said it accounts for more than half. The report also found that there is no single prevailing strategy to decide what storage to put in the cloud and what to keep on premises. Overall, respondents are evenly split with 33% relying on their team’s knowledge and expertise, 33% using automated third-party tools, and 31% taking recommendations from their cloud service provider (CSP).  

Supply chain challenges are wreaking havoc

The supply chain is also having a direct impact on enterprise storage. These supply chain challenges create extra effort with 67% of respondents having to spend more time on procurement and supply chain management. Almost the same number (65%) are forced to optimize and extend the life of their existing resources.  

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud deployments, including dedicated and shared IT environments, increased 24.7% year over year in the third quarter of 2022 (3Q22) to $23.9 billion. 

Kuba Stolarski, research vice president for IDC’s computing platforms and cloud infrastructure research practice, commented: “Supply chain challenges in the cloud infrastructure markets predate the pandemic, and while short-term shortages may ease over time, the effort required to navigate the supply chain is only increasing in complexity. Inherent in that complexity is cost and the spending increase we’re seeing in our IDC research is very much in line with what Virtana respondents noted – rising acquisition costs, rising supply chain management costs, and costs from delays and suboptimal decisions made in an environment with too many variables to process.” 

Stolarski continued, “While processing those variables efficiently and in a timely manner can reduce storage infrastructure costs, automated tools generating actionable intelligence may also remove operational bottlenecks and ultimately improve business outcomes.” 

Other survey highlights include: 

• To keep it in the cloud or on premises – On average, companies have put 57% of their storage in the cloud, keeping 43% on premises.
• Storage placement decisions matter – Of the few organizations whose storage costs are decreasing, 100% rely on their team’s knowledge to make placement decisions.
• The supply chain impact – Only 27% are willing to delay responding to business requests.

“Storage doesn’t usually make headline news, but it is an essential element of all enterprise applications. Yet many in the hybrid space are not thinking about or preparing for growth, change, and rising costs related to storage,” said Jon Cyr, VP of Product at Virtana. “Storage decisions can have a significant impact on cloud cost and performance, which is why observability and deep expertise in an organization’s global hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure are critical. Not only will it help optimize storage performance and cost, but organizations will also be better positioned to deal with external challenges.”  

Get the full research report, “The State of Hybrid Cloud Storage 2023” at: virtana.com/state-of-hybrid-cloud-storage-january-2023/