Cloud sprawl still a concern for IT directors

Grazed from CloudNews.  Author: Editorial Staff.

A new study by cloud monitoring provider, Opsview, has revealed that over two-thirds of UK organisations are still concerned about the growing threat of cloud sprawl. The issue is one that can derive in large-scale organisations, when employees deploy cloud computing-based applications without the involvement of their IT department.

67% of IT director respondents to the Vanson Bourne-led study stated they were worried about cloud computing’s impact on their service deployment, with 57% admitting to having concerns over internet-based cloud applications being widely deployed by their employees without consultation with IT departments. The resulting costing issues caused by cloud sprawl were also a major issue for respondents.

The research also discovered that over half (54%) of organisations were unsure of how many cloud-based services their employees were using, underlining the lack of visibility cloud computing can create for some business operations.

“Cloud services are incredibly easy to access and can provide multiple benefits to individual users. However, by not controlling the adoption of cloud services, businesses risk spiralling costs,” commented James Peel, product manager at Opsview.

“For example, businesses could be hit with unexpected costs when non-IT staff simply pay for services via their credit card before charging it back to the business. Ultimately unless the IT department has visibility into the cloud services being used by employees it is very difficult to keep track of what is being spent at any one time, since users are not going through traditional IT procurement channels.”

Another issue highlighted in the report is that attempts to gain better control over IT are being hampered by employees not adhering to IT policies. Of those companies surveyed, the vast majority (76%) admit employees are likely to flout IT policies in order to make use of cloud services.

“Before cloud, the scope of IT monitoring was a well understood process mostly confined to the internal systems of the business,” explained Peel.

“Now, monitoring is not just about looking at the business’ internal IT, it also needs to take into account the various external providers involved… [for instance], if the service provider is not meeting SLAs or the user experience is poor, organisations will be in a better position to renegotiate terms with that provider. Similarly, this type of monitoring can benefit managed service providers themselves by helping them prove they are hitting the agreed service levels.”

200 IT directors at UK organisations with more than 1,000 employees were surveyed as part of the study, which was commissioned by Opsview and conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne.