Anodot: 80% of orgs cannot detect spikes in cloud costs

As the pandemic subsides and enterprises shift to a hybrid workforce model to support employees who continue to work remotely, enterprises are struggling to control skyrocketing cloud computing costs, according to new research from autonomous monitoring company Anodot. The survey found that 80% of organizations cannot immediately detect spikes in cloud costs.

Above: Most organizations take several days to notice spikes in cloud costs — sometimes even weeks, according to the 2021 State of Cloud Costs Report.

Image Credit: Anodot

Greater than 25% stated that it can take months or weeks or several days to notice a spike in cloud costs. In fact, business spending more than $2 million on cloud costs had less insight into cloud costs than those that were spending less. According to the survey, 77% of respondents with more than $2 million in cloud costs said they were surprised by how much they spent.

On heavy cloud usage days, nearly 50% of respondents reported that cloud costs can spike by as high as 10-19%.

About 60% respondents said it took a few days to detect revenue loss from cloud costs. The delay in detection had a financial impact: cloud costs increased by 10%, the survey found.

2020 was an unexpected year, with the shift to remote work, and cloud computing bore the brunt of that change. As a result, cloud costs soared in 2020 — nearly 30% of the respondents saw a 25% to 50% jump in cloud costs, month-to-month, during a six-month period. Almost 20% of the businesses realized a 50% to 100% increase in cloud costs, month-to-month, during the same six-month period.

Another reason for the spikes in cloud computing costs is because it is not easy to transition business-critical operations to the cloud. Nearly 30% of the enterprises in the survey experienced a very rough or challenging transition — with only 10% claiming they experienced a very smooth transition.

In May 2021, Anodot surveyed 100+ senior IT, finance, and operations leaders on their experiences managing cloud costs during the pandemic and shortly thereafter as vaccinations became commonplace. The survey revealed that companies are overwhelmed by cloud computing costs and have no way to better manage them.

Read full Anodot 2021 State of Cloud Costs Report.