How does COVID-19 impact cloud adoption?

99% of IT professionals worldwide indicated an impact on their business today related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a MariaDB survey reveals.

The situation only slightly improves looking ahead to 2021, with 84% expecting a continued impact. And 74% of respondents expect a second wave of COVID-19 impact, with 51% planning to move more applications to the cloud to prepare for it.

Cloud adoption accelerating for some, slowing for others

The impact on businesses’ cloud adoption plans – with 40% currently accelerating their move to the cloud – has led to increases across a range of related decisions as companies prepare for future COVID-related shutdowns. When asked to select all that apply, the top choices on this topic were:

• 51% are planning to move more applications to the cloud
• 39% expect to be 100% in the cloud
• 32% are starting a move to the cloud

On the flip side, 24% of all respondents said they are slowing down their move to the cloud because of COVID-19’s impact. The U.S. indicated the highest percentage of slowing (36%), while the U.K. had the lowest (12%).

Specific to cloud databases, when asked what would prevent them from going “all-in” (choosing all that apply), the results showed:

• Security: 73%
• Price: 46%
• Compatibility: 45%
• Scalability: 35%
• Migration: 33%
• Lack of multi-cloud offering: 21%

Forever WFH

With 74% of respondents expecting new challenges because of a second wave of the pandemic, technologists are implementing a variety of technology changes to prepare for future shutdowns.

• The two strategies being implemented most are (choosing all that apply): Set up remote access for all employees (57%) and move more applications to the cloud (51%).
• 46% of respondents are implementing “forever” work-from-home (WFH) strategies.
• European respondents favor implementing remote access setups and permanent WFH strategies as the top two priorities to combat the fallout from the pandemic.
• U.S. respondents agree on the top priority of favoring remote access setups, but differ on the second priority, indicating that moving applications to the cloud was #2.

In-person technology events – see you next year

One of the early consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic was the cancellation of in-person corporate and technology events. While an overwhelming number of respondents miss these in-person events, 70% said the earliest they would consider attending an in-person technology event would be in 2021.

• 73% of respondents indicated missing corporate and technology events “very much” or “extremely.”
• 26% of respondents would consider attending an in-person technology event this year (2020), while 70% indicated the earliest they would attend would be in 2021.
• U.S. respondents were more evenly split compared to Europeans. In the U.S., 41% said they would consider an in-person event this year while 58% said next year would be the earliest.
• 95% of respondents will change their ongoing technology event behavior as a result of COVID-19, with 25% saying they will only attend online events, 69% attending more online events, and 1% not attending any events at all.