News

Top Cloud Asks Switch from Security to Cost Control

• By David Ramel
• 09/18/2023

In the current age of rampant ransomware, privacy and security are typically cited as the top challenges to IT organizations in the cloud, but a new survey indicates another culprit they need help with this year: costs.

Organizations seeking new technical capabilities are mostly looking to the cloud these days, says a new Cloud computing study 2023 from research firm Foundry, but the resulting costs are worrisome. In fact, the No. 1 ask from cloud providers in last year's Foundry report was security expertise -- in this year's report it's cost control.

"Respondents are looking to cloud providers to help successfully advance their cloud strategies and deployments," Foundry's report said. "Respondents were primarily seeking assistance with cost management capabilities, at 37 percent. Security expertise (34 percent), better cloud management capabilities (28 percent), and strategic guidance on overall cloud strategy are next up on the wish list. Respondents in the high-tech (44 percent) and services (43 percent) sectors are more likely to be looking to their cloud providers for help with cost management while government entities and non-profits are looking for aid with cloud management, cited by 35 percent."

As far as top challenges to cloud adoption, however, things remain the same with cost control top-of-mind.

"The top five challenges to cloud adoption are: controlling cloud costs (35 percent), data privacy and security challenges (31 percent), lack of cloud security skills/expertise (24 percent), integrating cloud resources with on-premises systems (23 percent), governance/compliance (23 percent), and a lack of cloud management skills/expertise (23 percent)," the company said in a Sept. 13 news release.

That sounds just like the company's description of last year's report, where costs were also the No. 1 challenge. "When it comes to implementing a cloud strategy, top challenges are controlling cloud costs (36 percent), data privacy and security challenges (35 percent) and lack of cloud security skills/expertise (34 percent)," Foundry said last year.

The firm has been publishing its cloud computing reports for 10 years in order to measure cloud computing trends among technology decision-makers, including adoption plans, spending, business drivers, challenges and top cloud growth areas.

Those challenges might be slowing things down, as this year's study found that 57 percent of organizations have accelerated their cloud migration over the past 12 months, down from 69 percent last year.

"Organizations recognize the value of cloud computing, as half of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) state that cloud capabilities have helped their organization achieve sustainable revenue growth over the past 12 months," Foundry said. "However, adoption and migration do not come without challenges that cloud providers must address. When asked about the biggest obstacles to implementing their cloud strategy, the top three stated by ITDMs are controlling cloud costs, data privacy and security challenges, and lack of cloud security skills/expertise."

It's no surprise, then, that cost management and security expertise were top asks of cloud vendors:

Last year, by contrast, security expertise (41 percent) led that list, followed by better cloud management capabilities (40 percent) and cost management capabilities (38 percent). So, along with inflation, concerns about cloud costs have risen over the past year.

Some key takeaways from the new report as listed by Foundry, along with bits of advice to address them, include:

• Cloud budgets continue to increase -- IT decision-makers report that 31 percent of their overall IT budget will go towards cloud computing and two-thirds expect their cloud budget to increase in the next 12 months.
• Organizations are defaulting to cloud-based services when upgrading or purchasing new technical capabilities. It's important to have a grasp on what business objectives are driving these cloud investments.
• IT decision-makers have plans for artificial intelligence and cloud computing, as the majority say AI/ML is the top cloud growth area this year and it is the number one cloud capability ITDMs plan to adopt.
• Due to an increase in cloud investments, organizations have added new cloud roles and functions. Understand their business needs and responsibilities when creating your messaging.
• Despite the benefits organizations see from the cloud, a variety of challenges still get in their way, mostly around cost control, security expertise and a skills gap. Provide solutions to your customers and prospects to combat these challenges.

The sudden rise of AI -- especially generative AI constructs like ChatGPT -- is of course a focus point of this year's report. In contrast, AI was not even mentioned in last year's report that was published in April, months before ChatGPT burst onto the IT scene. When asked which cloud capabilities organizations most likely to adopt, AI/machine learning led, named by 53 percent of respondents, followed by cloud-based security (46 percent), disaster recovery (46 percent), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) (40 percent) and big data/analytics, 38 percent.

"While AI/ML applications top the list of applications and workloads targeted for cloud migration over the next few years, use cases are not necessarily accelerating cloud strategies for the preponderance of respondents," the report said. "Slightly more than a third (35 percent) said AI will speed up cloud deployment while a greater number, 44 percent, said it will have no impact. Smaller enterprises with fewer than 1,000 employees were more likely to say AI/ML would have no impact on cloud deployment -- 51 percent compared to 36 percent of larger enterprises."

On the budget side of things, only 32 percent of respondents to the 2023 survey said proposed AI use cases will increase cloud budgets, with 45 percent saying the technology would have no impact.

Private clouds are currently the place were AI/ML workloads are run (reported by 20 percent of respondents), while 16 percent indicated they run in hybrid and public clouds, respectively.

"For future AI/ML workloads, all cloud models are under consideration, including public (30 percent), hybrid (29 percent), and private (28 percent)," Foundry said. "Given the significance of AI/ML strategies, it's important companies have the right partnerships and tools in place. Forty-four percent of respondents to the 2023 Cloud Computing Survey said they understand their cloud provider's roadmap for integrating AI tools into their platforms -- a plus for future migrations."

The study was fielded throughout August 2023 and is based on the responses of 893 global IT decision-makers that are involved in the purchase process for cloud computing and their organization has, or plans to have, at least one application, or a portion of their infrastructure, in the cloud, Foundry said.