IT leaders have too many cloud tools throughout the enterprise

A new report has revealed 78% of senior IT leaders have too many cloud tools throughout their enterprise.

CloudBolt Software has released its latest research report, Hitting a Wall in a Multi-Cloud, Multi-Tool World. The report, which represents the largest sample size of all CII studies to date, aims to uncover unmet cloud needs that hinder cloud innovation. The report is based on responses from more than 500 senior IT, DevOps, SecOps, and FinOps leaders from around the world, and was conducted on the Pulse research platform, a Gartner-owned research subsidiary.

The responses from this global audience revealed compelling evidence that multi-tool, multi-cloud environments have reached the limits of their efficacy; 79% said they are hitting a wall using their existing tools and platforms. These limitations are caused by too many groups across an enterprise using too many different tools and clouds, with 80% struggling to achieve comprehensive visibility into cloud usage and spend. Further complicating matters, these disparate tools and preferences are spread across islands of automation, which in turn create security vulnerabilities.

In order to leap over this wall and shed these limitations, a whopping 88% say they need a manager of managers an overarching solution to bridge the siloes, unify the overall multi-cloud/multi-tool strategy, and actively govern everything from a single place.

The key reasons why enterprise leaders almost unanimously agree that an overarching solution is needed include:

Sprawl 
78% of respondents said they have too many cloud tools throughout their enterprise. These tools are spread across siloed teams that make unilateral choices and employ their own approaches, with little alignment and reuse of what works across the enterprise.

Security
4 out of 5 respondents said their current cloud approaches have created new security vulnerabilities that put their companies at further risk, ranging from Zombie VMs and unsecured workloads to shadow IT.

Cost 
78% initially said they believed they had achieved cost savings using cloud versus their on-premises data centers. However, when pressed further, almost the same number (80%) said they actually struggle to achieve comprehensive visibility into costs and spend across all tools, resources, and clouds. A lack of visibility across a highly complex multi-tool, multi-cloud architecture almost ensures that companies don't know what cloud is costing or how to optimise it. This correlates with recent research released by Andreesen Horowitz that showed cloud has actually been more costly than most companies acknowledge the combination of hard costs, valuation cost, and opportunity cost, can actually be twice as much as the company was spending on their on-premises data centers.

A Manager of Managers

By the largest margin of any answer to any question in this survey, 88% of respondents agreed that in order to realise the full value of cloud, what is needed is an overarching solution that interconnects all of the various platforms, tools, and clouds, and provides clear visibility and governance across all of it.

"Our latest CII report reveals the growing chasm between what enterprises need in the new cloud order and what their current platforms and tools can provide," says CloudBolt CEO Jeff Kukowski.

"What got multi-cloud, multi-tool enterprises to their current state will not get them to the next level as they seek to further automate and accelerate digital transformation," he says.

"What's needed is a flexible, overarching framework that can connect all the disparateness, rationalise it, provide real visibility across everything, and govern with protective policies that don't restrict innovation. Enterprises at the forefront of the cloud race already realise this; they are embracing this new reality and extending their lead as a result."