Cloud operations were analyzed in a recent report by NetApp. The survey looks at how IT decision makers feel about the ways their organizations are working to optimize their environments. The report found that 33% of executives are “very confident” in their ability to operate in a public cloud environment, an increase from 2022 when only 21% reported feeling very confident.

Key findings include:

• 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 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.
• Despite a majority of tech executives (96%) agreeing that FinOps is important to their cloud strategy, 9% have a mature FinOps practice.
• The biggest FinOps challenges include reducing cloud costs (50%) and forecasting cloud spend (47%). Nineteen percent of respondents reported that they have been able to make the most of discounted cloud purchase options.