March 9, 2025
The findings of a recent Harness survey of 700 engineering leaders and developers in the United States and the United Kingdom point to a major problem in using cloud-based infrastructure: a lack of real-time visibility into cloud resource utilization. The study highlighted DevOps teams’ significant challenges when monitoring and managing cloud infrastructure. This poor visibility leads to inefficiencies and financial waste within organizations.
The survey uncovered several critical issues impacting DevOps teams:
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Limited Access to Real-Time Insights: Only 43% of respondents reported having access to real-time data on idle cloud resources. Furthermore, just 39% could monitor unused or orphaned resources, and a mere 33% had visibility into over or under-provisioned workloads.
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Reliance on Estimations for Purchasing Decisions: More than half (55%) of application developers acknowledged that their purchasing decisions are primarily based on estimations rather than precise data, leading to potential over-provisioning and increased costs.
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Disconnect Between Development and Financial Operations (FinOps): Approximately 52% of participants admitted to a disconnect between their application development teams and FinOps functions, which hinders effective cost management and resource allocation.
The lack of visibility and control over cloud infrastructure has significant financial repercussions:
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Wasted Expenditure: An estimated 21% of cloud infrastructure spending, equating to approximately $44.5 billion, is wasted due to inefficiencies such as over-provisioning and underutilization of resources.
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Delayed Identification and Resolution: Organizations require an average of 31 days to identify and eliminate cloud waste, including idle or unused resources. Additionally, it takes about 25 days to detect and rightsize over-provisioned cloud resources, prolonging inefficiencies and escalating costs.
Several practices contribute to the inefficiencies observed in cloud resource management:
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Underutilization of Cost-Saving Measures: A significant number of developers do not employ strategies that could optimize cloud costs:
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71% do not use spot orchestration.
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61% do not right size instances.
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58% do not utilize reserved instances or savings plans.
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48% do not track and shut down idle resources.
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Despite current challenges, there is optimism about leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance cloud cost management:
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Anticipated Benefits: 86% of developers believe that AI will improve their ability to optimize costs within the next year, offering potential solutions to current visibility and management challenges.
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AI-Driven Optimization: Integrating AI into DevOps workflows can facilitate real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and automated optimization of cloud resources, thereby reducing waste and improving efficiency.
The issues highlighted in the Harness survey are reflective of broader challenges in the industry:
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Network Complexity and Visibility Challenges: A study by Broadcom revealed that 80% of organizations experience increased network complexity and visibility blind spots as cloud adoption flourishes. This complexity hampers the ability to ensure uptime, performance, and security.
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Shifting Cloud Management Strategies: A global survey by Forrester Consulting found that 94% of organizations struggle with cloud waste, primarily due to overprovisioning and idle or underused resources. Despite these challenges, 56% of respondents reported increasing their cloud spending in the past year.
To address these challenges, organizations can adopt several strategies:
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Enhance Collaboration Between DevOps and FinOps: Fostering better communication and collaboration between development teams and financial operations can lead to more informed decision-making and efficient resource utilization.
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Implement Comprehensive Monitoring Tools: Advanced monitoring and observability tools can provide real-time insights into cloud resource usage, enabling proactive management and cost optimization.
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Adopt AI and Automation: Leveraging AI-driven tools can automate the detection and management of underutilized resources, predict usage patterns, and recommend optimizations, reducing manual intervention and associated errors.
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Invest in Skill Development: Providing training and resources to upskill teams in cloud cost management and optimization techniques can empower them to implement best practices effectively.
The survey underscores the critical need for improved visibility and management of cloud infrastructure consumption within DevOps teams. By addressing these challenges through enhanced collaboration, advanced monitoring, AI integration, and skill development, organizations can significantly reduce waste, optimize costs, and improve operational efficiency.
