Experience, best practices, and better tools are helping IT leaders get savvier about cloud economics. But emerging technologies such as generative AI and the drive to innovate will perennially complicate the equation. Cloud costs remain a key concern for IT leaders, who find themselves nearing a crossroads where expenditures for core workloads will need containment to free up spend for innovation. To be sure, enterprise cloud budgets continue to increase, with IT decision-makers reporting that 31% of their overall technology budget will go toward cloud computing and two-thirds expecting their cloud budget to increase in the next 12 months, according to the Foundry Cloud Computing Study 2023. Yet, controlling cloud costs remains the top challenge IT leaders face in making the most of their cloud strategies, with about one third — 35% — of respondents citing these expenses as the No. 1 barrier to moving forward in the cloud. Other top concerns are data privacy and security challenges (31%) and lack of cloud security and cloud expertise (24%). “Cloud costs continue to be a top concern for CIOs,” says Dave McCarthy, analyst at IDC. He and other industry observers and IT leaders note, however, that an abundance of tools, managed services, and platforms are giving CIOs greater visibility into cloud costs and that alone is helping to lower the bills.
Full report : CIOs sharpen cloud cost strategies — just as gen AI spikes loom.
