This past September, we ran the 2022 InfoQ Software Technology Adoption survey to better understand InfoQ reader demographics while also learning about the kinds of technologies and products that are on peoples’ radars.

The survey generated 529 responses.

The following report summarizes some of our key findings, including readers’ biggest technical challenges along with their technology adoption plans over the coming 12 months in the areas of cloud-native development/architecture, database/data engineering technologies, and software delivery.

[Note: If you are a software vendor that would like to see the complete results from this survey (including data from the ‘audience demographics’ and ‘commercial product adoption’ questions), please email us at sales@infoq.com.]

Key Findings

• 50% of survey respondents self-identified as “Architects”, and another 26% self-identified as “Developers”

• 39% of respondents decide which technologies/software products their company will adopt

• 80% of respondents are currently building and running Microservices, with another 8% planning to within the next 12 months

• 63% of respondents are currently using Kubernetes, with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• 77% of respondents currently have a Monitoring / Observability solution with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• When asked about their biggest technical challenges, the top five, most frequent responses were related to:

  • Cloud Computing - Including cloud adoption, migrating to the cloud, cloud cost reduction, and moving to a hybrid cloud

  • DevOps - Including improving team culture, best practices, improving software delivery

  • Application Security - Including shift-left security, cloud security, Zero-Trust Security and DevSecOps

  • Observability - Including service monitoring, distributed tracing, observability of distributed systems

  • Test Automation

Biggest Technical Challenges

In what areas are you facing the biggest technical challenges? What are your top 3 challenges? (439 respondents)

Role

Of the survey respondents:

• 50% self-identify as "Architects"

• 26% self-identify as "Developers"

• 9% self-identify as "DevOps / Operations & Infrastructure"

Which of the following roles do you strongly identify with?

Technology Adoption

Cloud-Native Technologies / Architectural Approaches

Of the survey respondents:

• 80% are currently building and running Microservices, with another 8% planning to within the next 12 months

• 71% are currently using Cloud Databases, with another 9% planning to within the next 12 months

• 63% are currently using Kubernetes, with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• 56% are currently employing Event-Driven Architectures, with another 20% planning to within the next 12 months

• 48% are currently using Serverless , with another 14% planning to within the next 12 months

• 31% are currently employing Reactive Architectures, with another 14% planning to within the next 12 months

• 26% are currently using Edge Computing, with another 11% planning to within the next 12 months

• 23% are currently running a Service Mesh, with another 20% planning to within the next 12 months

Is your organization currently using or planning to use any of the following Cloud-Native technologies / architectural approaches?

Database / Data Engineering Technologies

Of the survey respondents:

• 68% are currently using a Key-Value Store with another 8% planning to within the next 12 months

• 67% are currently using Data Analytics with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• 64% are currently using a Document Store with another 9% planning to within the next 12 months

• 48% are currently using Machine Learning with another 15% planning to within the next 12 months

• 44% are currently using a Column-Oriented Database with another 10% planning to within the next 12 months

• 41% are currently using a Stream Processing Platform with another 16% planning to within the next 12 months

• 20% are currently using a Graph Database with another 12% planning to within the next 12 months

• 19% are currently using Data Mesh with another 20% planning to within the next 12 months

Is your organization currently using or planning to use any of the following database / data engineering technologies?

Software Development / Delivery

• 90% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Manual Testing

• 77% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Monitoring / Observability with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• 77% of InfoQ readers are currently using an Authentication and Authorization platform with another 9% planning to within the next 12 months

• 84% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Test Automation with another 9% planning to within the next 12 months

• 59% of InfoQ readers are currently doing API Management with another 19% planning to within the next 12 months

• 38% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Testing in Production with another 13% planning to within the next 12 months

• 30% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Zero-trust security with another 24% planning to within the next 12 months

• 10% of InfoQ readers are currently doing Chaos Engineering with another 21% planning to within the next 12 months

Is your organization currently using or planning to use any of the following software development / delivery technologies?

Audience Demographics and Commercial Product Adoption

The survey also included specific demographic questions on:

• Company Size

• Seniority (e.g. Do you manage/supervise others?)

• Role in the adoption of new technologies / software products

…. as well as questions on commercial product adoption, in the following three areas:

• Observability / Monitoring Tools

• Databases (NoSQL / NewSQL / SQL)

• ServiceMesh Vendors / Products

If you are a software vendor that would like to see the complete results from this survey (including data from the ‘audience demographics’ and ‘commercial product adoption’ questions), please email us at sales@infoq.com.