Recent studies suggest that IT departments are struggling to develop the skills and processes required to support the rapid growth in cloud computing.

At the same time, IT budget for cloud services is increasing at a rapid pace – a 34% increase prediction by 2017 – and this new reliance on third party cloud resources demands careful planning and adoption.

Right now, public cloud service providers are the most common, used by 69% of businesses. These providers include Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Services (you can learn more about cloud basics here), also referred to as “hyperscale providers”. In a recent survey, it was found that 48% of large companies have already moved to one of these providers, and this number is predicted to jump to 80% by in just two years. Evidently, organizations are looking for large-scale cloud providers to move their data over in a way that allows them to scale quickly and in large quantities. Benefits in time to market and quality are also primary drivers to the cloud shift.

IT managers, naturally, have some concerns about the rapid cloud adoption that is sweeping the virtual world. Some are still hesitant about using public cloud services, largely because of concerns over security and management skills. Almost half of surveyed IT leaders reported plans to continue using two- and three-tiered cloud providers for some operations. Because there is a still a lack of technically skilled employees to manage the cloud and hybrid models are still in development, IT managers are moving slowly but feeling the pressure to adapt and eventually switch to managed cloud services.

What happens in the meantime? According to BetterCloud’s recent trend report, some IT professionals are concerned that cloud adoption is actually making their jobs harder, which seems slightly contradictory. This concern stems from the fact that many IT workers are still lacking the proper skills for cloud management, as well as the significant increase in vendors to deal with. Security and the budget to handle it are also growing issues with cloud computing – Tim Prendergast, CEO of cloud security firm Evident.co, suggests that security with regards to the cloud needs to be completely redefined and measured, as there is no prototype to go on yet.

The next steps are adaptation and refinement. As cloud computing grows over time, IT departments will adapt to the new cloud model, learning to manage many vendors and navigate cloud risks along the way. As with any brand-new model, constant learning and strategic refinement are crucial. Vizor can help IT departments track and manage all cloud subscriptions in a central, secure repository. Learn more below!

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Sources:
Voice of the Enterprise: Hosting and Cloud Managed Services by 451 Research
Trends in Cloud IT by BetterCloud
ITaaS Cloud Survey by McKinsey