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A new report by Canonical highlights the growth of hybrid cloud and multicloud solutions, with more than 83% of respondents reporting that they are using either hybrid or multi-cloud. In the last year alone, the percentage of respondents who did not use hybrid or multi-cloud dropped from 22.4% to 16.4%.

Meanwhile, security was repeatedly cited as a priority across Kubernetes and cloud native technology. Only 13.6% of respondents believed they had mastered security and compliance, and for 37.8% of respondents, “how secure is this thing” was a priority when considering cloud native technologies — with how to optimize resource utilization a distant second with 25.5%. Asked to choose the three most important factors when selecting a base image of a container image, the three most popular answers highlighted security and stability: 55.1% wanted images that had passed vulnerability and malware scanning, 39.1% highlighted compliance and 38.9% prioritized a version with long-term support.

Relevant skills remain in high demand — 48% of respondents highlighted lack of in-house skills as a top challenge in migrating to containers, and as the automation of operations continues to grow, finding a safe place to get the necessary tools is becoming more and more important, with expert commentators discussing the possibilities for a trusted operator “app store.”

On a lighter note, the focus on stability may have impacted one of the most interesting statistics. “Our intern” was identified as the manager of the cloud infrastructure of only 5.6% of respondents’ organizations in the 2022 report, down from 7.9% in 2021.

Canonical’s report drew from nearly 1,300 responses to an online survey posted in November 2021 after KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America.

Read the full report by Canonical.