Report provides roadmap for organizations navigating the complexities of hybrid and multi-cloud network infrastructure

LAFAYETTE, Colo., April 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™), a leading IT research and consulting firm, today announced the release of its latest research report, “Enterprise Strategies for Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Networks,” authored by Shamus McGillicuddy, vice president of research for network infrastructure and operations at EMA.

EMA research consistently shows that many enterprises are adopting hybrid cloud strategies that combine on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, and public cloud services. In fact, 56% of enterprises are now multi-cloud, leveraging two or more public cloud providers for infrastructure (IaaS) or platform (PaaS) services. While organizations continue migrating digital services to the public cloud, EMA anticipates that most mainstream enterprises will maintain hybrid environments—balancing traditional infrastructure with multiple cloud platforms to meet performance, compliance, and operational requirements.

Drawing on insights from 354 IT professionals at enterprises with hybrid, multi-cloud environments, this research examines how organizations are designing, building, and managing the networks that support these complex architectures. It serves as a practical roadmap for enterprises that have yet to embark on their hybrid or multi-cloud journey, offering firsthand perspectives on what worked well—and what challenges emerged—when building the networks that power these environments.

“Complexity is the current status quo in hybrid, multi-cloud networks. Many enterprises lack the ability to manage network infrastructure and services consistently across these diverse environments,” McGillicuddy said. “IT stakeholders told EMA that they have made it a high priority to centralize management of routing, network security, IP address space, DNS, and much more across their clouds and data center networks. This will be a key challenge as companies continue to diversify their cloud architectures.”

Some of the key findings from the report include:

Only 25% of respondents believe their organizations are completely successful at building and managing their hybrid, multi-cloud networks
Only 37% believe their network and cloud teams are completely effective at collaborating
Cloud service providers remain the most popular source of networking solutions in hybrid, multi-cloud networks
Only 29% are completely satisfied with their cloud network observability capabilities. Most organizations use cloud provider tools and traditional network monitoring and observability tools for cloud network observability

This independent research is sponsored by BlueCat, EfficientIP, IBM, Infoblox, and NETSCOUT.

A detailed analysis of the research findings is available in the report, “Enterprise Strategies for Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Networks.”

Shamus will reveal highlights from the report during the free April 23 webinar.

About EMA
Founded in 1996, EMA is a leading IT research firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help their clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services at https://www.enterprisemanagement.com/