Conversion from “earliest adopters” to “just cut bait” is an ordinary talk for most of the businesses out there. It is not uncommon for business leaders to be stunned to discover that they can barely keep track of the cloud services they’ve been paying for – time and again give space to a low-risk model: Cloud Sprawl.
The surplus adoption rate of any technology is hazardous. Long ago, virtualization was the buzz of the market, administrators were diving in different servers to create new workloads, setting aside the management part – brought VM sprawl issue into the scene. Now, a similar instance taking place with the wide adoption of cloud computing and the term that added in the list of security nightmare is cloud sprawl.
What Is Cloud Sprawl?
Cloud sprawl is a widespread phenomenon that takes place in an organization due to the uncontrolled proliferation or reckless usage of cloud-based applications. Most of the companies use an array of services to obtain maximum scalability and flexibility, which is justified. But often, it becomes a confusing mess as a disparate group of employees start using these services, and responsible authorities fail to keep track of it.
From Hype To Hyper
Innovator of every new technology knows how to hype its features and advantages in the market, but do they make users aware of hypertension comes along with inadequate monitoring of the same technology. Perhaps!
Undoubtedly, cloud adoption is blowing up in all aspects: support collaboration, simplify accounting, drive productivity and more. But, at the same time, such increasing cloud adoption rate is asking organizations to beware of the hidden dangers of cloud sprawl. Gartner recently had spoken to 110 senior executives belongs to risk, finance, audit and compliance sector, about their top risk concern while dealing with cloud computing. Most of them responded ‘lack of proper control monitoring in the business environment’ as a significant enterprise risk.
Effective Strategies For Managing Cloud Sprawl
There’s no doubt in saying that the unchecked growth of cloud resources is the main cause behind cloud sprawl. Organizations constantly add new resources and services to feed their user base, and not giving attention to timely cloud audits resulting, cloud sprawl. To add value, it is important for organizations to make an actionable plan for cloud sprawl. Here are some effective strategies for your comprehensive IT strategy.
Get Ahead With The Manifest Cloud Strategy
You should always clearly define and communicate your cloud strategy with CFO and other IT members to avoid any kind of communication gaps. To address cloud sprawl, you must first create and establish a proper implementation plan, and ensure a seamless implementation process.
Managers and other heads should also well-aware of any kind of changes take place in the defined cloud strategy. Organizations should ensure that team leaders receive written policies and protocols to circulate to the employees.
Develop a Cloud Migration Strategy
Having a definite cloud migration strategy is yet another way to manage cloud sprawl effectively. Cloud migration consists of many moving parts, which makes it a necessity to first analyze where workloads should be moved.
Conduct Regular Cloud Audits
From VM instances to other infrastructure instances, regular cloud audits cover all aspects of cloud services that might entertain cloud sprawl. Businesses who conduct cloud health checks find its advantages on-spot, which also help them in creating risk assessments plan to address many factors.
Implement Automated Identity Management
Every organization should follow a strong governance framework to track any kind of unauthorized access happening within the business. Establishment of role-based access control policies eases cloud services provisions and eradicate authority related confusions.
Does your business have cloud sprawl?
Believe it or not, cloud sprawl is becoming a bit of a problem and needs proper control over the cloud environment sooner rather than later. Most of the companies use multiple cloud platforms just for the sake of employees’ choices or, to entertain automated processes in business. But, it is necessary for the IT department to make sure that explicit reporting and monitoring of every activity should be there.
Regardless of how much cloud usage your company does, you should always be ready to apply some control. You never know when your volume of cloud services extends and overwhelms the IT team’s ability to manage and secure them. Never underestimate the power of ground control in the process of making your workers more mobile and effective.
