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Hybrid Cloud Is Here to Stay – and IT Leaders Are (Mostly) Missing the Tools They Need to Succeed

James Field
LogicMonitor

It won't come as a surprise to IT managers, but an alarming number of them describe their company's monitoring approach as "chaotic." According to a recent survey of over 500 global IT leaders, the challenges plaguing IT teams are significant, as they navigate everything from economic constraints, demands AI puts on their tech stack, and competing job priorities from senior leadership.

What Is the Problem?

The overwhelming majority of IT leaders (80%) say budget cuts are negatively impacting their company's cloud migration. At the same time, nearly the same amount (71%) say they expect to be working with a mix of both cloud and on-prem infrastructure — and all of them (100%) think it's best for business. It's clear that hybrid isn't going anywhere.

So what's the problem?

Almost half of IT leaders have only negative things to say about their company's current hybrid monitoring approach — contributing to that "chaotic" environment. And maybe most alarmingly, the majority (74%) of IT managers spend more than a full day each week responding to incidents. Giving IT teams that time back not only makes employees happier, but helps a businesses' bottom line. More on that later.

Where AI Fits In

We know artificial intelligence is absolutely everywhere these days — including on IT leaders' minds. Surprisingly, only 50% think that their organization's infrastructure is prepared to handle additional use of AI. Even worse: only 17% say their company's IT infrastructure completely supports business goals. This should be a wakeup call for the C-suite to listen to the concerns of their IT teams so they aren't hamstrung by tech capabilities when it comes time to implement AI tools.

They do have a wishlist, though. IT leaders mostly want AI to provide recommendations for actions they can take to solve incidents (taking a chunk out of that one day per week that they already spend responding), and ideally, recognize and resolve issues on its own. AIOps is heating up as an industry, so luckily for IT teams, this reality isn't far away.

The Big Picture: Helping IT Leaders Make an Impact

The IT teams I've worked with throughout my career have always been extremely impressive. They're committed to their work, steeped in the details, and they keep an eye on the bottom line and care deeply about how their work supports it. I was not surprised to see this is true of most IT leaders, too – 74% have ideas about how to solve business problems using their data, but no time to develop them.

These findings should alert company leadership that more needs to be done (cough cough, better tools!) to give IT leaders more job satisfaction, as 65% of them say they're happiest at work when they have interesting, innovative work to do. Freeing up their time is also imperative for the business: 40% have put off projects that increase user and customer satisfaction to focus on responding to incidents, and 35% say they put off increasing revenue. Talk about a missed opportunity.

All of this to say: heed the concerns of your IT people, and results — everything from job satisfaction to company performance — will follow.

James Field is Sr. Director of Product Strategy and Operations at LogicMonitor

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Hybrid Cloud Is Here to Stay – and IT Leaders Are (Mostly) Missing the Tools They Need to Succeed

James Field
LogicMonitor

It won't come as a surprise to IT managers, but an alarming number of them describe their company's monitoring approach as "chaotic." According to a recent survey of over 500 global IT leaders, the challenges plaguing IT teams are significant, as they navigate everything from economic constraints, demands AI puts on their tech stack, and competing job priorities from senior leadership.

What Is the Problem?

The overwhelming majority of IT leaders (80%) say budget cuts are negatively impacting their company's cloud migration. At the same time, nearly the same amount (71%) say they expect to be working with a mix of both cloud and on-prem infrastructure — and all of them (100%) think it's best for business. It's clear that hybrid isn't going anywhere.

So what's the problem?

Almost half of IT leaders have only negative things to say about their company's current hybrid monitoring approach — contributing to that "chaotic" environment. And maybe most alarmingly, the majority (74%) of IT managers spend more than a full day each week responding to incidents. Giving IT teams that time back not only makes employees happier, but helps a businesses' bottom line. More on that later.

Where AI Fits In

We know artificial intelligence is absolutely everywhere these days — including on IT leaders' minds. Surprisingly, only 50% think that their organization's infrastructure is prepared to handle additional use of AI. Even worse: only 17% say their company's IT infrastructure completely supports business goals. This should be a wakeup call for the C-suite to listen to the concerns of their IT teams so they aren't hamstrung by tech capabilities when it comes time to implement AI tools.

They do have a wishlist, though. IT leaders mostly want AI to provide recommendations for actions they can take to solve incidents (taking a chunk out of that one day per week that they already spend responding), and ideally, recognize and resolve issues on its own. AIOps is heating up as an industry, so luckily for IT teams, this reality isn't far away.

The Big Picture: Helping IT Leaders Make an Impact

The IT teams I've worked with throughout my career have always been extremely impressive. They're committed to their work, steeped in the details, and they keep an eye on the bottom line and care deeply about how their work supports it. I was not surprised to see this is true of most IT leaders, too – 74% have ideas about how to solve business problems using their data, but no time to develop them.

These findings should alert company leadership that more needs to be done (cough cough, better tools!) to give IT leaders more job satisfaction, as 65% of them say they're happiest at work when they have interesting, innovative work to do. Freeing up their time is also imperative for the business: 40% have put off projects that increase user and customer satisfaction to focus on responding to incidents, and 35% say they put off increasing revenue. Talk about a missed opportunity.

All of this to say: heed the concerns of your IT people, and results — everything from job satisfaction to company performance — will follow.

James Field is Sr. Director of Product Strategy and Operations at LogicMonitor

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 ...

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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 ...

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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 ...