Embracing Cloud Confidence: Key Insights for 2017 IT Strategy

It’s the holiday season, and many IT leaders add cloud control and confidence to their wish lists. A new wave of vendors now offers cloud management and governance services designed to simplify adoption, streamline maintenance, and mitigate common pitfalls such as security gaps, multi‑cloud complexity, and lack of end‑to‑end visibility.

This festive period is perfect for enjoying family meals and hunting for hidden gifts, but it’s also a natural moment to pause before the new year. As 2017 approaches, CIOs and IT managers need to shift from lofty buzzwords like “digital transformation” to concrete, day‑to‑day actions that upgrade existing technologies and processes.

A recent study from the Digital Enterprise Journal provides a solid starting point. The research confirms that organizations that maintain comprehensive visibility across every layer of their IT infrastructure—just as they did in the era of physical data centers—are 86% more likely to achieve faster mean time to recovery (MTTR). Moreover, 59% of respondents identified making data actionable as the top goal for IT performance monitoring. While many firms have expanded data collection, the challenge now lies in contextualizing that data to deliver real insight. Continuous monitoring delivers the precise metrics that trace end‑user experience back to its root cause.

The study also offers valuable guidance on aligning business objectives with technology initiatives, drawing on Accenture’s data about the skills required to select and manage an ever‑expanding cloud portfolio.

Looking ahead, 2016 may see another public‑cloud venture retire: Cisco has announced the retirement of Intercloud, its multi‑year attempt to compete with AWS. Intercloud, we hardly knew you.

Enjoy the holidays, and we look forward to tackling new cloud challenges together in 2017.