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98% of Cloud Deployments Experience Performance Issues

Jerry Melnick

A full 98% of cloud deployments experience some type of performance issue every year, according to a new survey by SIOS Technology, in partnership with ActualTech Media Research.

The survey was designed to understand current challenges and trends related to the state of performance and high availability for mission-critical applications in small, medium and large companies. A total of 390 IT professionals and decision-makers responded, collectively representing a cross-section those responsible for managing databases, infrastructure, architecture, cloud services and software development. Tier-1 applications explicitly identified include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and SAP/HANA.

There are some clear trends and a few surprises that we didn't see coming, and that might surprise you as well:

■ Small companies are leading the way to the public cloud with 54% planning to move more than half their mission-critical applications there by the end of 2018, which compares to 42% of large companies

■ For companies of all sizes, having complete control over the application environment was cited by 60% of the respondents as a key reason for why their mission-critical workloads remain on premises

■ Most (86%) organizations are using some form of failover clustering or other high availability mechanism for their mission-critical applications

■ Almost as many (95%) report having experienced a failure in their failover provisions

It's evident that organizations are finally moving their critical applications to the cloud, and at a greater pace than we could have imagined a few years ago. But they're still in the early days of adoption, placing mature operations a few years away. Here are some more details.

Misery Loves Company

A mere 2% of respondents claimed they never experience any application performance issues that ever affect any end users. The rest of us mere mortals claim to experience such issues, on average, daily (18%), 2-3 times per week (17%), once per week (10%), 2-3 times per month (15%), once per month (11%), 3-5 times per year (18%) or only once per year (8%).

The responses were reasonably consistent among Decision Makers, IT Staff, and Data & Development Staff with one notable exception: Decision Makers perceive a lower occurrence of performance issues than staff does. Nearly half (46%) of Decision Makers responded that performance issues occur 3-5 times per year or less (compared to 23-25% for staff), and only 11% responded that issues occur daily (compared to 20-21% for staff).

Rapid Response to the Rescue

One possible explanation for this apparent discrepancy is IT Staff being made aware of problems affecting performance with an automated alert, followed by a rapid response to find and fix the cause.

When asked about high availability provisions failing (something that is certain to affect performance!), 77% learn of the problem via an alert from monitoring tools, while 39% learn from a user complaint. (Note that multiple responses were permitted.)

As for remediation, it takes more than 5 hours to fix a problem only 3% of the time. Nearly a quarter (23%) are fixed in less than an hour, over half (56%) are fixed in 1-3 hours, and 18% are fixed in 3-5 hours. Small companies are able to resolve problems more quickly (31% in less than an hour) than large ones (only 11% in less than an hour), likely because the former utilizes the public cloud more extensively and has less complex configurations.

Culprits in the Cloud

When asked about the cause of performance issues that arise in the cloud, the main culprits are the application or the database being used, which together accounted for 64% of the issues. It is important to note that this question did not distinguish between who is responsible for the managing the application and/or database, which would likely be the cloud service provider for a managed service. Additional causes include issues with the service provider (17%) or the infrastructure (15%). In 4% of the cases, the issue remained a mystery.

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98% of Cloud Deployments Experience Performance Issues

Jerry Melnick

A full 98% of cloud deployments experience some type of performance issue every year, according to a new survey by SIOS Technology, in partnership with ActualTech Media Research.

The survey was designed to understand current challenges and trends related to the state of performance and high availability for mission-critical applications in small, medium and large companies. A total of 390 IT professionals and decision-makers responded, collectively representing a cross-section those responsible for managing databases, infrastructure, architecture, cloud services and software development. Tier-1 applications explicitly identified include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and SAP/HANA.

There are some clear trends and a few surprises that we didn't see coming, and that might surprise you as well:

■ Small companies are leading the way to the public cloud with 54% planning to move more than half their mission-critical applications there by the end of 2018, which compares to 42% of large companies

■ For companies of all sizes, having complete control over the application environment was cited by 60% of the respondents as a key reason for why their mission-critical workloads remain on premises

■ Most (86%) organizations are using some form of failover clustering or other high availability mechanism for their mission-critical applications

■ Almost as many (95%) report having experienced a failure in their failover provisions

It's evident that organizations are finally moving their critical applications to the cloud, and at a greater pace than we could have imagined a few years ago. But they're still in the early days of adoption, placing mature operations a few years away. Here are some more details.

Misery Loves Company

A mere 2% of respondents claimed they never experience any application performance issues that ever affect any end users. The rest of us mere mortals claim to experience such issues, on average, daily (18%), 2-3 times per week (17%), once per week (10%), 2-3 times per month (15%), once per month (11%), 3-5 times per year (18%) or only once per year (8%).

The responses were reasonably consistent among Decision Makers, IT Staff, and Data & Development Staff with one notable exception: Decision Makers perceive a lower occurrence of performance issues than staff does. Nearly half (46%) of Decision Makers responded that performance issues occur 3-5 times per year or less (compared to 23-25% for staff), and only 11% responded that issues occur daily (compared to 20-21% for staff).

Rapid Response to the Rescue

One possible explanation for this apparent discrepancy is IT Staff being made aware of problems affecting performance with an automated alert, followed by a rapid response to find and fix the cause.

When asked about high availability provisions failing (something that is certain to affect performance!), 77% learn of the problem via an alert from monitoring tools, while 39% learn from a user complaint. (Note that multiple responses were permitted.)

As for remediation, it takes more than 5 hours to fix a problem only 3% of the time. Nearly a quarter (23%) are fixed in less than an hour, over half (56%) are fixed in 1-3 hours, and 18% are fixed in 3-5 hours. Small companies are able to resolve problems more quickly (31% in less than an hour) than large ones (only 11% in less than an hour), likely because the former utilizes the public cloud more extensively and has less complex configurations.

Culprits in the Cloud

When asked about the cause of performance issues that arise in the cloud, the main culprits are the application or the database being used, which together accounted for 64% of the issues. It is important to note that this question did not distinguish between who is responsible for the managing the application and/or database, which would likely be the cloud service provider for a managed service. Additional causes include issues with the service provider (17%) or the infrastructure (15%). In 4% of the cases, the issue remained a mystery.

Hot Topics

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

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In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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