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The State of CloudOps 2023

Only 33% of executives are "very confident" in their ability to operate in a public cloud environment, according to the 2023 State of CloudOps report from NetApp.

This represents an increase from 2022 when only 21% reported feeling very confident.


"Cloud operations is critical to realizing the benefits of cloud for infrastructure and applications," said Haiyan Song, EVP and GM, CloudOps at NetApp. "This research demonstrates that although organizations face challenges in their cloud operations, they also recognize the importance of investments in areas including automation and FinOps to overcome those challenges."

Key findings from the report include:

Cloud operations remain a struggle for IT teams

64% of IT decision makers continue to see security and compliance as the top cloud operations challenge, followed by cost management, which was cited as the top challenge by 60% of respondents.

The biggest areas of focus for improving cloud operations continue to be cost management and security, according to 66% of technology executives.

Automation is the key to success in cloud operations

The survey reveals that 82% of respondents believe that cloud automation is critical for optimizing cloud operations and ROI.

95% of respondents have already incorporated some automation in their cloud operations and 88% plan to increase cloud operations automation in 2023.

Enterprise teams are embracing FinOps

Despite a majority of tech executives (96%) agreeing that FinOps is important to their cloud strategy, only 9% have a mature FinOps practice. These numbers remain fairly consistent with findings from the 2022 survey.

The biggest FinOps challenges include reducing cloud costs (50%) and forecasting cloud spend (47%). Only 19% of respondents reported that they have been able to make the most of discounted cloud purchase options.

"Spot by NetApp's 2023 State of CloudOps report is interesting because it shows that cloud cost management is not just a standalone process, but one that is inextricably linked with resource management, compliance, and security", said Hyoun Park, Chief Analyst at Amalgam Insights. "One cannot simply look at cloud costs in a vacuum without advocating for holistic cloud management. As companies seek to manage cloud costs, the sheer volume and variety of cloud cost service components leads companies to automate as they fully optimize and rationalize cloud resources to match business needs."

Methodology: The 2023 State of CloudOps report, sponsored by Spot by NetApp and conducted by Dimensional Research, examines the current state of CloudOps for large enterprise teams, primarily focusing on operational activities, staffing and expertise, automation, and FinOps. This report is based on an online survey of 310 US-based IT decision makers in operations or applications roles who are responsible for public cloud infrastructure investments at companies with 500 or more employees.

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The State of CloudOps 2023

Only 33% of executives are "very confident" in their ability to operate in a public cloud environment, according to the 2023 State of CloudOps report from NetApp.

This represents an increase from 2022 when only 21% reported feeling very confident.


"Cloud operations is critical to realizing the benefits of cloud for infrastructure and applications," said Haiyan Song, EVP and GM, CloudOps at NetApp. "This research demonstrates that although organizations face challenges in their cloud operations, they also recognize the importance of investments in areas including automation and FinOps to overcome those challenges."

Key findings from the report include:

Cloud operations remain a struggle for IT teams

64% of IT decision makers continue to see security and compliance as the top cloud operations challenge, followed by cost management, which was cited as the top challenge by 60% of respondents.

The biggest areas of focus for improving cloud operations continue to be cost management and security, according to 66% of technology executives.

Automation is the key to success in cloud operations

The survey reveals that 82% of respondents believe that cloud automation is critical for optimizing cloud operations and ROI.

95% of respondents have already incorporated some automation in their cloud operations and 88% plan to increase cloud operations automation in 2023.

Enterprise teams are embracing FinOps

Despite a majority of tech executives (96%) agreeing that FinOps is important to their cloud strategy, only 9% have a mature FinOps practice. These numbers remain fairly consistent with findings from the 2022 survey.

The biggest FinOps challenges include reducing cloud costs (50%) and forecasting cloud spend (47%). Only 19% of respondents reported that they have been able to make the most of discounted cloud purchase options.

"Spot by NetApp's 2023 State of CloudOps report is interesting because it shows that cloud cost management is not just a standalone process, but one that is inextricably linked with resource management, compliance, and security", said Hyoun Park, Chief Analyst at Amalgam Insights. "One cannot simply look at cloud costs in a vacuum without advocating for holistic cloud management. As companies seek to manage cloud costs, the sheer volume and variety of cloud cost service components leads companies to automate as they fully optimize and rationalize cloud resources to match business needs."

Methodology: The 2023 State of CloudOps report, sponsored by Spot by NetApp and conducted by Dimensional Research, examines the current state of CloudOps for large enterprise teams, primarily focusing on operational activities, staffing and expertise, automation, and FinOps. This report is based on an online survey of 310 US-based IT decision makers in operations or applications roles who are responsible for public cloud infrastructure investments at companies with 500 or more employees.

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The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...