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Cloud Barriers Impact the Bottom Line

While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today.

Among the key findings:

Cost and visibility are top barriers

Cost and visibility are the top barriers to cloud. Respondents report that "cost controls" and "visibility and troubleshooting" (both 45%) are the biggest hurdles to their organization taking full advantage of cloud (i.e. where they are burning the most man-hours ).

Human error is top cause of cloud outages

Legacy approaches and lagging skill sets are causes for cloud security concern. More cloud network outages were caused by firewalls (31.2%) than cyberattacks (15.3%) in the past year. In addition, human error caused 47.1% of outages.

AI is impacting cloud budgets

Unrealistic cloud budgets are resulting in cost overruns and concern about the implementation of generative AI (GenAI) initiatives. 30.2% report their organization's AI initiatives have increased planned investment in cloud. But another 38.4% report AI initiatives have not impacted cloud budgets (25.8%) or even decreased them (12.6%).

Cloud skills gap remains strong

62.6% report their company has struggled to hire the necessary candidates to support cloud initiatives within their organization. 65.7% of respondents reported that they have struggled to find educational resources for learning about high-demand skills such as multicloud network architecture and design.

"Cloud networking and network security have been thought of as utilities – essentials like electricity that enterprises rely on to run their business and just expect to work," said Chris McHenry, Vice President of Product Management at Aviatrix. "But as we've seen from the practitioners behind the infrastructure, there's still a of complexity in the cloud that is ultimately impacting businesses' bottom lines."

Methodology: The survey included more than 400 global respondents spanning security, cloud, networking roles, with several reporting they hold more than one of these roles at their organization. More than 50% of the respondents were from enterprise organizations with more than 2,000 employees.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Cloud Barriers Impact the Bottom Line

While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today.

Among the key findings:

Cost and visibility are top barriers

Cost and visibility are the top barriers to cloud. Respondents report that "cost controls" and "visibility and troubleshooting" (both 45%) are the biggest hurdles to their organization taking full advantage of cloud (i.e. where they are burning the most man-hours ).

Human error is top cause of cloud outages

Legacy approaches and lagging skill sets are causes for cloud security concern. More cloud network outages were caused by firewalls (31.2%) than cyberattacks (15.3%) in the past year. In addition, human error caused 47.1% of outages.

AI is impacting cloud budgets

Unrealistic cloud budgets are resulting in cost overruns and concern about the implementation of generative AI (GenAI) initiatives. 30.2% report their organization's AI initiatives have increased planned investment in cloud. But another 38.4% report AI initiatives have not impacted cloud budgets (25.8%) or even decreased them (12.6%).

Cloud skills gap remains strong

62.6% report their company has struggled to hire the necessary candidates to support cloud initiatives within their organization. 65.7% of respondents reported that they have struggled to find educational resources for learning about high-demand skills such as multicloud network architecture and design.

"Cloud networking and network security have been thought of as utilities – essentials like electricity that enterprises rely on to run their business and just expect to work," said Chris McHenry, Vice President of Product Management at Aviatrix. "But as we've seen from the practitioners behind the infrastructure, there's still a of complexity in the cloud that is ultimately impacting businesses' bottom lines."

Methodology: The survey included more than 400 global respondents spanning security, cloud, networking roles, with several reporting they hold more than one of these roles at their organization. More than 50% of the respondents were from enterprise organizations with more than 2,000 employees.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...