Whether that means building a mobile app or analyzing data to strengthen customer engagement, these shifts signal how strategic the public cloud has become. But CIOs also view the cloud as a way to build software faster by embracing agile, DevOps and design-thinking philosophies.
As a result, many CIOs are adopting “cloud-first” strategies. The worldwide public cloud market, also known as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), grew 29.5 percent in 2017 to total $23.5bn, according to data Gartner. "Cloud-directed IT spending now constitutes more than 20 percent of the total IT budget for organizations using cloud,” says Sid Nag, a Gartner research director. “Many of these organizations are now using cloud to support production environments and business-critical operations."
IT leaders shared with CIO.com their experiences and lessons learned in making a strategic shift to the public cloud.

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