Cost management woes continue for cloud adopters: report

Dive Brief:

Controlling costs is the top challenge for 36% of cloud adopters, according to the 2022 Cloud Computing Survey released Thursday by Foundry. The company, formerly known as IDG, surveyed 850 IT decision-makers in February.
Data privacy, security challenges and a lack of cloud security skills were next on the list of hurdles. Yet, nearly seven in 10 decision-makers said their company accelerated cloud use in the past 12 months.
On average, companies plan to devote 32%, or $78 million on average, of IT budget toward cloud in the next 12 months. That’s up from $73 million in 2020.

Dive Insight:

Cloud computing is now a staple of modern IT infrastructure, as executives seek scale and improved operations. But initial cost management problems can frequently be traced back to poor planning,

Executives too often move applications off physical servers before ensuring they were properly coded to run in the cloud, said Sid Nag, research VP at Gartner.

Of course, businesses have evolved their approach to the cloud. Now, the majority of enterprises have a central cloud team or cloud center of excellence (CCoE), a group of employees tasked with guiding companywide cloud strategy, according to Flexera's 2022 State of the Cloud report.

Nevertheless, decentralized IT and multicloud strategies create cost challenges, as businesses often struggle to ascertain how specific departments or developers use the cloud.

Putting in place an oversight and governance structure is important, Nag said. And in a multicloud environment, businesses must be aware of the resources available to optimize costs.

"In a multicloud model, which is a smart strategy often, you have the opportunity of selecting the more cost effective capabilities or the instance of some sort that will help you lower your costs," said Nag. One cloud provider may be cheaper than others, and while cost isn't always the reason people go to multi cloud, it's one potential upside.

Just over half of companies running a multicloud architecture say they’re already seeing the benefits of greater platform and service flexibility, according to the Foundry report, while four in 10 are achieving cost savings or optimization.