Cloud Computing: Fighting IT fragmentation

Grazed from Networking. Author: John Dix.

According to pundits a good percentage of IT spending is already out of IT’s control and the trend calls for it to keep tipping away.

As we enter budget season, that raises interesting questions about the future of IT spending and, more importantly, questions about corporate IT responsibility and accountability. Regarding the latter, there are many hidden perils that will likely get ugly in the coming years.

In its "Raising Your Digital IQ" survey of 500 large U.S. companies, PwC concludes that 15% to 30% of IT spending already occurs outside the IT consolidated budget (see "Does ‘shadow IT’ lurk in your company?"). And Gartner says that within three years that number will reach 35%. Ten years ago it was less than 10% (see "The upside of shadow IT")…

The culprit driving the change, of course, is cloud computing. It is increasingly easy for line of business (LOB) folks to acquire computing resources and services without going through conventional IT channels (resulting in the rise of so-called shadow IT). Even when cloud services are openly acquired they can result in budget shifts, as LOB folks stop paying IT for a given service and instead add that as a revolving subscription expense to their own spreadsheets…

Read more from the source @ http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2012/092412-edit.html