New independent research commissioned by Node4 reveals 97% of mid-market companies plan to migrate some workloads out of their public cloud environments over the next 12 months. 

However, far from signalling the end of public cloud, the firm claims that this trend reflects a more targeted and pragmatic approach, where organisations optimise location and workload in environments that work best for their specific needs.

In this context, it’s notable that only 5% intend to repatriate all their applications. The majority (49%) plan to remove a few specific applications and workloads. 

This is all according to Node4’s Unlocking Growth in the Mid-Market: The Node4 Report, which also states that performance considerations top the list of reasons for migrating selected applications away from public cloud environments – and are due to:  

• Lift and shift workloads that were unsuited to the public cloud
• Applications that have been modernised but aren’t performing as expected 
• User frustrations from SaaS application latency  

“Mid-market organisations are entering a new phase of cloud strategy—one defined by pragmatism, not dogma,” comments Richard Moseley, CEO, Node4.

“Most still have a substantial footprint of on-premises infrastructure and applications running in the public cloud. This demonstrates a clear preference for hybrid environments and a shift from cloud-first to cloud-appropriate. We believe this will be the mid-market’s default setting for the foreseeable future.”  

“Organisations that migrated to the public cloud several years ago have realised that while their environments provide many benefits and offer more scalable on-demand performance than other hosting options, they aren’t always the best fit for every application. This applies particularly to organisations that lifted and shifted to the public cloud without due planning and strategy—perhaps with legacy systems or databases that were never intended for cloud consumption.”

Mid-market business leaders cited data sovereignty (30%) as the second most likely reason to repatriate workloads from public cloud environments. While concerns around regulations like DORA, GDPR and the US Cloud Act are part of this picture, this result reflects a broader unease about control, jurisdiction, and long-term data access – especially for those in regulated or compliance-heavy environments. 

Other reasons for repatriation include risk management (29%), technical limitations (27%), cost optimisation (26%), compliance (26%), and security (21%). Looking at security in particular, data suggests that respondents who run primarily on-premises infrastructure are more confident in preventing and responding to cyber-attacks than those with fully cloud-based infrastructure. 

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This is a counterintuitive result as most mid-market organisations would struggle to replicate the advanced security and access configurations available in public cloud environments.

Commentary from within the research highlights several reasons, including a perceived loss of control, complexity, limited visibility and skills gaps—all of which impact the ability of mid-market organisations to take full advantage of cybersecurity protection in public cloud environments.  

Mosely concludes: “Public cloud still plays a vital role for the mid-market, but it’s no longer the default. Our data shows mid-market leaders are optimising for performance, compliance, and more direct control. Businesses that get this balance right will unlock greater efficiency, agility, and resilience from their infrastructure investments. This, in turn, will lay the foundations for improved growth and productivity.”  

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