Enterprises worldwide spent a record $34.6 billion on cloud services in 2020’s second quarter, up roughly 11 percent from the previous quarter and 30 percent from the same period last year, according to research firm Canalys.
What isn’t known is how much of that money was wasted due to poor planning, faulty execution, inadequate oversight and internal conflicts, among other causes. Maintaining firm control over cloud spend is essential to curbing waste, says Jimmy Pham, a principal specializing in DevOps, platforms as a service and containers as a service at business advisory firm Booz Allen Hamilton. “Gaining control over cloud spend can’t be a one-time effort,” he warns. “A combination of technology, operations and practices can help reduce spending waste.”
