A study by Leaseweb Global of UK IT professionals has revealed that over half of those surveyed trust public cloud services less than they did two years ago.

The research consulted 500 UK-based IT professionals about their experience with public cloud providers over the last two years.

The current distrust of public cloud providers is the result of issues around usage costs, migration and customer service – despite 72% of respondents agreeing that they have effectively controlled public cloud usage costs.

A majority of 57% of professionals questioned had found the migration of workloads out of a public cloud environment challenging, while 49% said they had experienced difficulties in understanding their cloud usage costs. The same amount, 49%, said they had struggled to get hold of a public cloud provider’s customer services.

The research also highlighted that ‘cloud only’ and ‘cloud first’ IT infrastructure strategies were not dominant amongst the respondents. Despite there being an increase in the adoption of cloud infrastructure during the pandemic, the study showed a decrease in support for ‘cloud first’ strategies during 2022.

During the period between January 2019 and December 2021, 36% of organisations surveyed described their approach to IT infrastructure as ‘cloud first’, while 19%, stated they were committed to a ‘cloud-only’ approach. Post pandemic, from January 2022 onwards, ‘cloud first’ commitments had decreased to 31%, with ‘cloud only’ rising to 25% of respondents.

Private cloud only (23%) and a mixture of on-premise and public cloud (20%) were the most popular selections as ideal IT infrastructure, followed by public cloud only (17%) and a mixture of on-premises and private cloud (14%).On-premises only the least popular selection at 7%.

Two-thirds of respondents also indicated that they believed the industry will see the end of on-premise infrastructure over the next two years.

“The results of this study strengthen the case for hybrid combinations thanks to the flexibility and choice it can deliver to both large and small companies,” said Terry Storrar, Managing Director UK at Leaseweb. “

And much as there has been a shift towards cloud adoption, rather than highlighting the pandemic as a key driver of a shift to the cloud, it appears that businesses were investing in cloud beforehand and that investment levels have remained relatively static.

“Although respondents acknowledge that the desire and need to look after on-premises infrastructure is dying, the results also indicate that businesses are still using it as an ongoing component of their IT infrastructure when adopting hybrid cloud. The key takeaway from this research is IT teams are looking for flexibility ­– there’s no one size fits all approach.

“Organisations are now more likely to qualify cloud out during the assessment stage, rather than the other way around, but the main focus is on choosing the right infrastructure locations for specific use cases.”