Posted by Bangalore: The cloud computing market globally has been steadily on the rise between 14 to 20% of CAGR as per various industry estimates. However, when it comes to managing the cloud, IT decision-makers admit that cloud operations remain a struggle for IT teams, revealed a new report.
The Spot by NetApp released the 2023 State of CloudOps report, an annual survey that explores the current state of CloudOps (cloud operations) and how IT decision makers (ITDMs) feel about the ways their organisations are working to optimise their environments.
The report found that only 33% of executives are “very confident” in their ability to operate in a public cloud environment, an increase from 2022 when only 21% reported feeling very confident.
This report is based on an online survey of 310 US-based ITDMs in operations or applications roles who are responsible for public cloud infrastructure investments at companies with 500 or more employees.
Cloud operations remain a struggle for IT teams
64% of ITDMs as per the survey continue to see security and compliance as the top cloud operations challenge, followed by cost management, which was cited as the top challenge by 60% of respondents.
Cost management and security remain the top areas of focus for improving cloud operations, say 66% of technology executives.
It’s a fact that today enterprises and businesses are dealing with hybrid and multicloud leading to more complexities for IT teams. A Cisco report found that 47% of organisations use two or three public cloud providers. However, one of the ways that would bring ease to managing cloud operations is by adopting automation.
Automation is the key to success in cloud operations
According to the survey, 82% of respondents believe that cloud automation is critical for optimising CloudOps and ROI. And as many as 95% of respondents have already incorporated some automation in their CloudOps and 88% plan to increase cloud operations automation in 2023.
One of the aspects of increased cloud usage is the cost factor, however, it is very much linked to managing CloudOps in organisations. And that’s why many organisations have set up financial operations (FinOps) teams to manage the cost aspects of CloudOps as part of their cloud strategy.
Enterprise teams are embracing FinOps
The survey found that despite 96% of tech executives agreeing that FinOps is important to their cloud strategy, only 9% have a mature FinOps practice. The report noted that these numbers remain fairly consistent with findings from the 2022 survey.
The biggest FinOps challenges include reducing cloud costs (50%) and forecasting cloud spend (47%), as per the report. And only 19% of respondents reported that they have been able to make the most of discounted cloud purchase options.
“Cloud operations is critical to realising the benefits of cloud for infrastructure and applications,” said Puneet Gupta, VP and MD India/SAARC, NetApp.
“This research demonstrates that although organisations face challenges in their CloudOps, they also recognise the importance of investments in areas including automation and FinOps to overcome those challenges,” added Gupta.
“Cloud cost management is not just a standalone process, but one that is inextricably linked with resource management, compliance, and security,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and Chief Analyst of Amalgam Insights.
“One cannot simply look at cloud costs in a vacuum without advocating for holistic cloud management. As companies seek to manage cloud costs, the sheer volume and variety of cloud cost service components leads companies to automate as they fully optimise and rationalise cloud resources to match business needs,” added Park.