Enterprises are keen on cloud repatriation – but not for all workloads

So long, public cloud, a whopping 97% of surveyed companies say they plan to ditch the public cloud in favour of in-house infrastructure.

The growing trend of cloud repatriation doesn't mean the end of the public cloud, however, as most of those companies aren't shifting every workload over, just a few specific ones.

Node4 surveyed 601 executives at mid-market firms and found that 49% of companies plan to shift a few applications and workloads away from the public cloud over the next year, though 43% plan to move a "significant" number — and 5% want to repatriate all of their work.

"This demonstrates a clear preference for hybrid environments and a shift from cloud-first to cloud-appropriate," said Node4 CEO Richard Mosely. "We believe this will be the mid-market’s default setting for the foreseeable future."

The poll follows research from IDC last year showing that cloud migration is a growing trend, but also suggesting that only 8-9% of companies plan a full workload repatriation, with most removing selected apps instead.

The idea of cloud repatriation has gathered steam helped by the high-profile example of SaaS company Basecamp, which has said it would save $10 million over five years by ditching the cloud in favor of its own hardware.

Explaining the shift from public cloud

The main driver behind the shift is performance, according to Node4. The surveyed companies have found some workloads simply aren't suitable for public cloud, applications aren't performing as expected, and users are frustrated by application latency.

"Organizations that migrated to the public cloud several years ago have realized that while their environments provide many benefits and offer more scalable on-demand performance than other hosting options, they aren't always the best fit for every application," said Moseley.

The second most common reason for shifting workloads was data sovereignty, with 30% of those polled noting that motivation. This growing focus on data sovereignty is being accelerated by regulatory concerns, but researchers added it also reflects "broader unease" around control, jurisdiction, and access.

Beyond those reasons, the report also said repatriation was motivated by risk management (29%), technical limitations (27%), costs (26%), compliance (26%), and security (21%).

Node4 said that last point might come as a surprise given most mid-market organizations would "struggle to replicate the advanced security and access configurations available in public cloud environments."

"Cybersecurity confidence declines as organizations move further into the cloud," the report found. "94% of organizations running primarily on-premises say they’re confident in their ability to prevent and respond to cyberattacks. That number falls to 78% for fully cloud-based organizations."

The report is the latest to suggest dissatisfaction with the cloud. Research by Gartner last month revealed that a quarter of organizations are experiencing frustration with cloud adoption projects, with a separate study showing three quarters of respondents had exceeded their cloud budgets.

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