Reactive or short-sighted cost management strategies are often the root cause of rapidly rising cloud computing costs, a new study from Boomi and Forrester Consulting suggests.
According to the study, companies are slow to introduce cost remediation tactics or lack a comprehensive understanding of their own infrastructure, which in turn has exacerbated wasteful cloud spending.
72% of global enterprises exceeded their cloud budgets in the last fiscal year, the study noted, pointing to a widespread epidemic of cloud overspending in the broader market.
With public cloud spending expected to reach more than $1 trillion by 2026, the report warns that “the stakes are high” to reduce costs.
Despite 65% of leaders prioritizing cloud cost management and optimization (CMCO) strategies in the early stages of development, Boomi found that most companies lack “proactive strategies” in the early stages of architecture.
Only 6% of decision makers cite their cloud cost strategies as being as proactive as possible, while only four in ten described themselves as containing costs at the “solution architecture stage.”
Traditional cloud computing issues are a notable barrier in this regard, with 52% of respondents suggesting they lack an adequate strategy to address excessive storage issues and 42% lack an adequate strategy to mitigate consumption. excessive bandwidth.
“Unexpected costs often arise from a lack of understanding when it comes to cloud capacity management and monitoring,” said Guy Warren, CEO of ITRS. ITPro.
“Following the same approach and relying on oversizing to avoid running out of capacity tends to work well on-premises, but is exceptionally and unnecessarily wasteful in the cloud,” Warren added.
Similarly, this over-provisioning of resources can often be attributed to a lack of adequate visibility within an individual organization's cloud architecture, as Adrian Bradley, head of cloud transformation at KPMG UK, said. ITPro.
“Many companies lack visibility into cloud usage and costs, making it difficult to identify and manage inefficiencies. This can lead to over-provisioning, underutilized resources, and wasted spending,” Bradley said.
According to the Forrester study, greater complexity is on the way, with a rapid increase in both cloud workloads and costs expected over the next two years.
The study revealed that decision makers expect select groups of applications to grow at a faster pace: 54% are looking for IT operations, 50% are looking for hybrid working, 45% are looking for software creation platforms and tools, and 44% are looking for software creation platforms and tools. % search digital. experiences.
With interdepartmental operations compounded by other complexities, enterprises face a considerable challenge in ensuring their cloud computing activities remain manageable.
“Cloud complexity is an unfortunate inevitability as organizations continue to advance their technology infrastructure,” said Mark Coates, vice president of EMEA at Gigamon. ITPro.
“We've seen this in cloud computing for years, as expanded workforces, sophisticated security measures and hybrid cloud environments create increasingly complex networks,” he added.
There are many opportunities for companies to reduce cloud spending
The report leans on integration platform solutions as a method for more effective mitigation and cost reduction, citing the enthusiasm with which respondents view integration possibilities.
67% of respondents agreed that an integration platform capable of connecting applications, data and people is a “game changer” in terms of improving cloud efficiency and reducing cloud spend at the development stage. solution architecture.
Of respondents already using integration platform as a service (iPaaS) solutions, 59% experienced more effective cloud cost management, 56% experienced greater data visibility, and 50% experienced better cloud cost management. cloud spending.
Bradley noted that it is also important to periodically review organizational cloud spending and services, due to the often changing nature of cloud computing systems.
“It is also important to examine variable charges, spend volume clauses and third-party spend to identify and plug cost leaks,” he said. “The cloud offers brilliant flexibility, but requires regular review to ensure profitability.”
