Virtana Research Survey Examines Multicloud Trends, Challenges
Cloud complexity grows as 83% of IT leaders use more than one cloud service provider; 44% use more than three.
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Virtana, a leading provider of AI-driven solutions for hybrid cloud management and monitoring, has released its latest independent research report, The State of Multi-Cloud Management 2023. The report, part of the company’s fourth annual multicloud survey, asked 350 IT leaders and cloud decision makers in the U.S. and U.K about their multicloud infrastructure, challenges, and future plans. The report found that 83% of IT leaders are using more than one cloud service provider (CSP), and 44% are using more than three CSPs. The survey results demonstrate growing management and data complexities that come from the high number of cross-provider interactions.
The survey asked respondents what their number one challenge is in managing their hybrid/multicloud infrastructure. The top challenge for respondents using five or more CSPs, cited by 31% of that group, was keeping rising costs under control, compared to 17–26% of respondents with fewer CSPs to manage.
Very few organizations are not using public and private clouds at all (0.3% and 2%, respectively). The vast majority have a solid mix of public and private clouds, with multiple CSPs in use. However, complexity does not come just from managing multiple CSPs. Other factors include:
- Three-quarters of organizations (77%) manage four or more instances, and 22% manage 11 or more.
- Cost consolidation adds to the complexity; 56% of respondents are not trying to consolidate cloud costs from multiple CSPs; of the 44% who are consolidating multicloud cost information, two-thirds are doing that work manually.
“CSPs are not one-size-fits-all, so going multicloud to take advantage of specific capabilities is often the appropriate strategy. Most businesses need the flexibility to add instances to support evolving requirements,” said David McNerney, cloud management product lead at Virtana. “Our main point to customers is that they can streamline the management of it all.”
FinOps is the practice of bringing financial accountability to the variable spend model of the cloud to enable all teams to make informed and appropriate business trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality. Less than one-quarter of respondents (24%) have a mature, effective FinOps practice in place, leaving 76% with incomplete, or even nonexistent, processes and controls to hold stakeholders throughout the organization accountable for cloud costs.
Other survey highlights include:
- Despite the growing pains associated with establishing a FinOps practice, 38% of respondents have put in the effort to move beyond the early stages (up from 36% in March 2022), which means 62% have a solid structure for a FinOps practice in place.
- When it comes to tracking costs, most organizations aren’t looking to their FinOps team to take the lead; 89% of organizations use their IT team compared to only 41% that use their finance or procurement team and just 17% that use FinOps.
- The more CSPs an organization has -- with 69% of respondents using five or more -- the more likely they are to track costs in a siloed way, compared to 54-58% of those using fewer than five CSPs.
The report is available here; a short registration is required.