Public Cloud Usage Expands, Businesses Want Accounting Of Real Costs

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Public cloud usage is growing, specifically in use for business applications. But when a cloud is shared with other entities, how can a business get a clear picture of costs?

According to a survey by Dimensional Research from Cloud Cruiser of nearly 350 IT professionals who attended the Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent shows in 2014 and 2015, 85 percent of respondents believe it is valuable to share cloud consumption metrics with the business, and yet 42 percent continue to find it difficult to properly allocate public cloud usage and costs.

The survey found that 46 percent of respondents leave applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), HR, or email to public cloud providers — an increase from 38 percent last year — while 43 percent reported that they are more likely to rely solely on AWS for their computing needs, an increase from 27 percent last year. Interestingly, the number of businesses leveraging internal private clouds dropped from 38 percent last year to just 27 percent this year.

David Gehringer, principal at Dimensional Research said in the release, “IT is expected to provide reliable services and ensure cost transparency so the business can make fact-based decisions about the ROI on services. In 2016, we expect to see more business applications in the cloud and an increased focus on cost transparency comparing those of internal resources and external public cloud services.”

As a result, IT will need to reliably allocate usage and spend for each cloud service as the need for greater cost transparency and the reliance on public cloud both increase.