The results of Aptum’s yearly Cloud Impact Study 2022 show that 73% of IT decision-makers have seen higher-than-expected expenses as a result of cloud computing, a significant rise of 28% from just over half (57%) of businesses in 2021. The research examines the typical financial motivations for cloud computing as well as the reasons for its unanticipated costs.
Aptum is a hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider delivering complex, high-performance cloud solutions with an integrated secured network. For Aptum’s annual study, 400 senior IT professionals were surveyed about their views and methods for using cloud technology. Respondents came from businesses with more than 250 workers in the US, Canada, and the UK. Financial services, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, public education, and the private sector were among the industries represented.
The majority (86%) of respondents think cloud technology is crucial to their company’s financial stability, and more than half (63%) say cloud transformation positively influences IT expenditures. Overall, cloud computing has provided respondents more control over IT spending.
Organizations may pay for the compute and storage they use in the cloud while also keeping track of their monthly spending and consumption thanks to the operational expenditure (OpEx) payment models. 71% of respondents to Aptum’s research agreed that cloud transformation had a favorable influence on operational efficiency.
Modernization, Complexity, Familiarity
However, just 20% of respondents have a comprehensive strategy in place for their transition, and 65% of questioned IT decision-makers admit they have ‘wasted considerable IT investment owing to cloud inefficiencies.’ In order for organizations to prosper and promote company growth, the research report outlines the most frequent causes of unexpected expenditures and explains how they may be addressed.
The following are the main reasons of unexpected costs:
- Lack of familiarity with the cloud – Effective cloud management has challenges due to a lack of internal resources, knowledge, and skill.
- Runaway cloud costs – Businesses frequently use more resources than anticipated when they do not configure the cloud to scale up and down effectively.
- The ‘Hotel California of Cloud’ effect – Cloud is seductively simple to enter but challenging to leave. Planning and knowledge are essential when selecting the best cloud infrastructure for workloads to prevent egress fees.
- Hybrid complexity – It has extra management expenses when hybrid, multi-cloud, and legacy infrastructure systems are combined.
- Cloud modernization – Modernizing their cloud apps is something that businesses are focusing on more and more. For those wanting to achieve this, old systems and a lack of experience sometimes increase complexity and cost.
- Wrong consumption model – Companies that aren’t familiar with cloud computing risk choosing the incorrect consumption model.
“Unforeseen costs associated with the cloud can be a challenge for many businesses that lack a comprehensive cloud strategy. Typically, unanticipated costs come about due to a lack of familiarity with the cloud,” said Marvin Sharp, Vice President of Product & Strategy at Aptum. “Businesses don’t always fully understand how consumption models work and which one is best for their organization. For example, the original migration can often cause a peak in price due to lack of successful refactoring of applications. This price increase can be large, and isn’t always explained to businesses, causing unnecessary concern.”
