More and more enterprises are going ‘all in’ on cloud, indeed analysts at IDC claim that IT spending will hit $44.2 billion this year of which and cloud will make up 46 per cent of businesses IT spend. An independent CIO report commissioned by Fruition Partners in 2015 that looked at the use of cloud computing identified that they had a range of serious concerns over cloud control. In 2016, the research was repeated and extended to cover 400 CIOs of large organisations in both the UK and the USA, and across a range of industry sectors and it showed that little had changed.
Maturity is the key to minimising risk
The most concerning finding are that 80 per cent of CIOs admit they do not apply the same comprehensive IT service management processes to cloud as they do for in-house IT services. When compared to last year’s figures, the research finds while there has been a slight improvement in overall cloud maturity, there is still a long way to go. In fact, more than 85 per cent of CIOs still says that the proliferation of public cloud computing services is reducing the control their organisation has over the IT services it uses. CIOs are highly concerned by the negative impacts of this trend, with three-quarters of them saying it leads to financial waste and increases the business and security risks to the organisation.
In the light of these risks, CIOs cannot afford to ignore the fact that the need for rigorous management is actually greater, not less, in the cloud. Part of the solution to this is making better use of the IT Service Management (ITSM) tools that they already employ to manage in-house IT. The survey found that while in-house IT services are, on average, managed by a combination of six established ITSM processes, cloud-based services are, on average, only subject to four, and only a fifth of CIOs report that ITSM processes have been applied to all cloud services.
Cloud sprawl is becoming easier to regulate
Shadow IT is also a particular concern that is affecting CIOs’ control over enterprise IT: two-thirds of respondents believe that employees signing up to a cloud storage service, CRM applications or collaboration applications is creating a culture of shadow IT within their organisation, with 62 per cent saying that there are cloud applications being used in the business without the IT function’s knowledge.
There is a ray of light in these findings: the wider use of service catalogue functionality contained within ITSM solutions means that 71 per cent of those who use this kind of application say that it is helping them control cloud sprawl. By using a service catalogue, CIOs can help minimise shadow IT: if it’s easy and hassle-free for users to choose and use 3officially-sanctioned cloud services, then they are less likely to follow a DIY route.
Orchestrating cloud platforms is key to good service
Another concern is that the more responsibility CIOs hand over to third-party cloud providers, the more they open themselves up to the ‘blame game’ if one of those services fails. This is evidenced by the finding that more than half of respondents say that if users have problems with cloud applications, such as Salesforce or Dropbox, they deal with the cloud provider’s support team directly. While this may take the support burden off corporate IT, when things go wrong it’s not clear who is responsible, particularly if SLAs are not correctly put in place or monitored.
There is one encouraging sign regarding improving control over the cloud: last year, only 27% said they could and did use ITSM tools to orchestrate cloud platforms. This year, that figure has gone up to 40%. However, that still leaves 44% who have the tools but aren’t using them for orchestration, and 16% who don’t have the right tools in place at all. The orchestration is an essential part of the cloud management process, and CIOs should focus on putting this technology to work.
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ITSM is key to taming the cloud
It’s clear that CIOs continue to face challenges from the cloud. Although there are many opportunities that the cloud offers to reduce costs, improve productivity and introduce a ‘consumerised’ service experience, it’d be foolish for CIOs to thoughtlessly trust that public cloud services will work flawlessly and be delivered perfectly at all times. Similarly, they cannot ignore the risks that shadow IT can pose by creating an uncontrolled universe within an organisation’s IT infrastructure.
Part of the solution is to use investments in ITSM that have already been made by using it to manage public cloud technology in the same way organisations are using it for in-house systems and private cloud. By offering employees functions such as self-service access to approved cloud services, or by using ITSM to manage assets and service providers, there is a much better chance that CIOs can start to tame the cloud and exploit its benefits without the risks.
Grant MacDonald is Managing Partner of Fruition Partners UK & I. Grant was co-founder in 1996 of Partners in IT – the UK company that was acquired by Fruition Partners in 2014 as part of its international expansion strategy. Prior to becoming Managing Partner, he ran Fruition Partners UK’s consulting practice, supporting the company’s market-leading position as the only Gold ServiceNow partner entirely dedicated to the ServiceNow platform.
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