Companies need multiple clouds to address tech needs, Forrester says

Dive Brief:

One-hundred percent of organizations already use several cloud infrastructures or cloud application platforms, according to a Forrester report, commissioned by Pivotal, of U.S. cloud decision makers. Nearly 80% of cloud decision makers use a hybrid cloud solution for software development, testing, deployment and operations.
More than half of respondents adopted multiple cloud solutions to decrease the impact of their on-premise data center and to support a more efficient infrastructure. While doing so, more than 40% of organizations plan to create cloud-based microservices, internet of things and SaaS applications on their cloud platform by 2019.
For 46% of cloud decision makers, compliance enforcement and audit capabilities are critically important to their hybrid cloud platform. Only 27% of respondents cited that consistent platform operations are critically important in their hybrid cloud solutions.

Dive Insight:

No single cloud can address every need of an organization. Using multiple and hybrid solutions was the next and most natural, progression in the cloud era.

The average organization is using about five public and private clouds in which they experiment or run applications. When rooted in consistency, the cloud is a powerful tool no matter what form it's adopted. But the freedom the cloud elicits must be controlled.

Four in 10 CIOs adopt the cloud to cut costs and scale resources, but lines of business use the cloud in different ways. It is vital for companies to understand how the cloud budget is spent.

However, it sometimes takes time to properly harness and manage the cloud's capabilities. Some organizations experience an unexpected spike in cost after adoption because of an unintended increase in consumption taking up extra bandwidth.

Cloud governance is the best answer to abusing consumption. Third-party reporting tools or following a consumption hierarchy can help trace an organization's rate of data use. Once an organization identifies the origins of the extra costs, it can better delegate who needs more data versus who needs restriction.