All About Interwebz: Cloud spending is on the rise once again as company budgets increase

New research has claimed that although cloud spending remains a top priority for many organizations, but there’s a darker side to the investment that might be costing them unexpected money.

New Wasabi Technologies research as part of its 2023 Global Cloud Storage Index found that despite tightening budgets, it appears that companies are now prepared to inject more money into technologies such as cloud storage as they move into the year ahead.

An overwhelming majority (83%) of respondents said that they were expecting to increase the amount of data that they store in the public cloud next year, and subsequently, 81% had confirmed plans to increase public cloud storage budgets.

Cloud spending on the rise

Of the survey’s EMEA respondents, 83% said that they were expecting to increase the amount of data that they store in the public cloud next year, and subsequently, 81% had confirmed plans to increase public cloud storage budgets.

This follows an already cloud-centric 2022 - a year that saw 87% of the participants migrate from on-prem storage to the public cloud. Germany led the way, while the UK trailed below the average indicating room for potential growth this year.

More resilient infrastructure, not needing to refresh old hardware, and scalability were all cited as key drivers for cloud adoption. Choosing a specific vendor saw companies focus their attention on things like data protection, security, and compliance features.

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Over half (52%) of the respondents reported exceeding their budgets on public cloud storage last year, and while some of the additional costs incurred came from increased storage and migration, price hikes and egress fees stung a significant number of businesses.

“Today’s enterprises are required to be agile, and the insights gained from data lend a competitive advantage,” said Andrew Smith, senior manager of strategy and market intelligence at Wasabi Technologies.

“However, while the perceived value of enterprise data might be limitless, storing and accessing that data, on the other hand, has a very real cost. Unfortunately, the complexity and uncertainty of cloud storage fees can be a major challenge, and a key reason why more than half of organisations exceeded their cloud storage budget in 2022. This highlights a significant pain point for enterprises, and an opportunity to improve as they assess cloud storage spending for 2023.”

“Unfortunately, the complexity and uncertainty of cloud storage fees can be a major challenge,” he added - and with an almost 50:50 distribution between fees and storage when it comes to cloud spend, it’s clear that companies will need to pay close attention as they look to invest more in cloud.