Given the strategic importance of the cloud and size of cloud expenditures, it’s critical for enterprises to have solid controls in place to manage it all. According to our latest research, however, while most organizations agree with that sentiment, very few have put it into practice. There are distinct but related disciplines that come into play: FinOps and cloud governance. In this two-part series, we explore current state of each.
Cloud governance is a framework of mechanisms, processes, and relations used by various parties to control and to operate a cloud environment. Its purpose is to ensure that the business can operate efficiently in the cloud in the way that it need to, and can adjust operations as required. We asked 360 cloud decision-makers to characterize their organization’s approach to cloud governance. Here’s what they told us:
25% have a mature cloud governance program in place with codified processes and a unified platform
TechTarget outlines a cloud governance framework that covers six interrelated areas essential to instituting proper controls and optimizing the use of cloud services: financial management, operations management, security and compliance management, data management, performance management, and asset and configuration management. One quarter of surveyed enterprises have all of these areas covered. This means that, among other capabilities, they are able to:
- Adjust cloud usage to manage spend within budgeted parameters with cost controls, reporting, and alerts
- Determine resource requirements for new applications and monitor the state of cloud services
- Monitor and manage application performance and infrastructure resources to deliver efficient and expected levels of IT services
- Automate allocation and deployment of resources and ensure an application’s desired state
These enterprises are able to plan and control various aspects of their cloud usage to ensure the best performance at the lowest cost and risk.
41% have comprehensive cloud governance, but it’s stitched together from a lot of point tools and disparate processes.
These organizations have achieved coverage across the organization from a cloud governance perspective, which is critical, but it’s a patchwork. Gathering data and insights likely requires a lot of manual work that takes time and could be error-prone. And in additional to any known gaps, there could also be any number of unknown issues due to data consolidation, analysis, or hand-off challenges that affect the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall program. Our own research shows that the vast majority of organizations can’t easily consolidate data from their various migration, cloud cost optimization, IPM, APM, and cloud infrastructure monitoring tools. The more manual the process is, the more inconsistency and uncertainty you have.
It’s not just data consolidation. You also need to be able to use that data to make the right decisions. This requires slicing and dicing it in the ways that make sense for your business. And you need to be able to take action with the insights that the analysis delivers.
30% have a few cloud governance tools, policies, and processes here and there, but it’s inconsistent.
Organizations at this stage have started the cloud governance journey, which likely provides some improvements within individual stakeholder groups, but probably hasn’t create a meaningful impact from an overall business perspective. There is an opportunity here to accelerate maturity by tackling both consistency and coverage at the same time. You can do this by addressing data consolidation/analysis/action at the enterprise level, which can facilitate adoption as it’s applied throughout the organization.
4% have no cloud governance in place.
This incredibly low number underscores the importance of having formal controls in place to govern operations in the cloud. But for this tiny minority with zero cloud governance in place, the clock may be ticking on their ability to effectively manage cloud performance, cost, and risk. If your organization is in this cohort, it’s worth considering whether you may be selling your digital transformation and other strategic objectives short.
Wherever you are in your cloud governance journey, Virtana can help.
With Virtana Platform, you can manage your entire IT infrastructure with a multi-cloud management platform to radically simplify the optimization, migration, and monitoring of application workloads across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments. Try it for free
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Jaime Banuelos
