451 Research expects 60% of enterprises to have the majority of their IT resources residing in the cloud by 2019. While that reflects the cloud-first attitude many enterprises are adopting, it still leaves some workloads earth-bound, residing on local systems and infrastructure.

Earlier this year, AWS sponsored an IDC InfoBrief that contains some interesting insights into how industrial customers, specifically discrete and process manufacturers, see the cloud benefits and challenges. Those of you who are Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) serving these businesses should find this report particularly interesting.

Why move your applications to the cloud?

First of all, the study found that 60% of end users preferred cloud-based solutions over on-premises. Unfortunately, because ISVs and in-house development teams haven’t created cloud-native applications, many IT departments have to take the “lift-and-shift” approach to migrating to the cloud. For example, only 12% of IDC’s study participants said their MES (manufacturing execution system) was designed for the cloud. The majority (52%) migrated to the cloud using lift and shift and more than a third (36%) are still on-premises.

Lift and shift – A method of migrating an application or workload “as is” from one environment to another, usually on-premises to the cloud. Think of it like moving an old house from the country to the city. Nothing about the house changes, just the environment around it.

ISVs and business leaders alike may be interested in what study participants told IDC were the greatest benefits of cloud computing to the business. While cost restructuring is almost always a reason businesses look to the cloud, the benefits respondents ranked as important or very important had far more to do with the accessibility and usability of their IT solutions than saving money.

When IDC asked ISVs what the barriers were for offering applications in the cloud, the answers were a bit more predictable. Security and compliance topped the list, although business model concerns were still a strong factor.

Connectria helps ConexSys focus on software, not servers

Most ISVs want to focus on their customers and creating the next killer app, leaving them little time to devote to become cloud experts as well. We can help you overcome the challenges of migrating your application to the cloud and managing the data and applications that reside there.

For example, HI-IQ from ConexSys is a software platform designed to be the centerpiece tool for managing interventional radiology workflow. ConexSys licenses HI-IQ to hospitals to improve departmental patient workflow, outcomes, and inventory management. Partnering with Connectria to deploy a hybrid cloud in a dedicated server environment allowed ConexSys to offer a HIPAA compliant, high availability cloud solution to some very demanding customers, while keeping their internal focus on advancing the HI-IQ platform functionality.

“Partnering with Connectria has allowed us to provide an attractive hosted solution option for our customers. As a result, it’s given us peace of mind. We no longer have to worry about power generators and servers…Connectria takes care of that for us. We can focus upon delivering superb IR software while our customers can concentrate on providing quality IR healthcare. ” Emily DeMerchant, Director, ConexSys

You can read more about Connectria’s work with ConexSys and other ISVs on our customer profiles page. When you’re ready, reach out to us for a discussion on how you can overcome any obstacles holding you back from the cloud.