A survey of 1,800 senior IT decision makers finds that public and private cloud computing platforms, depending upon security, compliance, management complexity and performance requirements of application workloads, are now being relied on in equal measure

Conducted by the market research firm Illuminas on behalf of VMware by Broadcom, the survey finds 53% of respondents identify private clouds that are either hosted in some type of colocation facility or on-premises data center as their top priority for deploying new workloads over the next three years, compared to 50% that are prioritizing public clouds.

A full 82% of respondents are running workloads in both private and public cloud computing environments, with three quarters (75%) noting that the split is intentional. Primary reasons cited for deploying workloads on a private cloud are security (81%), reliable performance (81%) and simplification of IT operations (78%). Reasons cited most often for using public cloud services are scalability (84%), reliable performance (84%) and simplification of IT operations.

Overall, security and compliance‑sensitive applications are the most likely workloads to be deployed in a private cloud (51%), followed by data‑intensive applications (46%), the survey finds.

Prashanth Shenoy, vice president of product marketing for VMware Cloud Foundation Division (VCF) at Broadcom, said that the survey makes it clear that instead of always favoring public cloud services, there has now been a reset that strikes a balance between both options. In effect, it’s no longer an either-or strategy, he added.

For example, the survey finds 66% of respondents prefer to run container and Kubernetes-based applications on private cloud or a mix of public and private, while 55% prefer private cloud for artificial intelligence (AI model training, tuning and inference.

There are, of course, tradeoffs. More than three quarters (76%) said public cloud is creating new non‑core IT silos, with 77% believing these silos are deploying resources which may not follow policies or best practices. Nearly half of respondents (49%) said they estimate more than a quarter of their public cloud spend is wasted, with 31% reporting that waste exceeds 50%. Only 6% believe they are not wasting any of the budget allocated to public clouds. A total of 70% also said these silos make it difficult for IT to govern cost and security, with 92% noting they trust private cloud for security and compliance needs.

Two-thirds (66%) are also “very” or “extremely” concerned about storing data in public cloud environments, with 61% also noting they are “very” or “extremely” concerned with keeping up to date with changing compliance requirements when using public clouds.

Two-thirds (66% are “very” or “extremely” concerned about public cloud compliance, and security is cited as the leading driver for moving a workload from a public to a private cloud. Well over two-thirds of respondents (69%) are considering workload repatriation from public to private cloud, with one-third having already moved some workloads.

IT teams appear to also be moving to centralize the management of public and private clouds, with 81% now structuring their technical organizations around a platform team rather than technology silos. A third (33%) said siloed IT teams present the greatest challenge to private cloud adoption, while 30% cited a lack of in-house skills/expertise as a barrier to private cloud adoption. In fact, the survey finds. More than half (52%) of respondents said their organization relies on professional services for specific cloud‑related needs, with 28% being heavily dependent on professional services for all aspects of cloud adoption, migration, and operation.

Regardless of how IT platforms are managed, however, cost management (45%) and security and disaster recovery to improve operational resilience (44%) are major priorities, the survey finds.

IT organizations have, of course, been arguing among themselves over which platforms lend themselves best to running different classes of workloads. The reasons for picking one platform over another often include as much technical merit as they do personal bias. The one certain thing, however, is that even in the cloud era, there remains no shortage of options for running an increasingly diverse range of application workloads.