Only 33% of executives are "very confident" in their ability to operate in a public cloud environment, according to the 2023 State of CloudOps report from NetApp.

This represents an increase from 2022 when only 21% reported feeling very confident.

"Cloud operations is critical to realizing the benefits of cloud for infrastructure and applications," said Haiyan Song, EVP and GM, CloudOps at NetApp. "This research demonstrates that although organizations face challenges in their cloud operations, they also recognize the importance of investments in areas including automation and FinOps to overcome those challenges."

Key findings from the report include:

Cloud operations remain a struggle for IT teams

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 biggest areas of focus for improving cloud operations continue to be cost management and security, according to 66% of technology executives.

Automation is the key to success in cloud operations

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.

Enterprise teams are embracing FinOps

Despite a majority of tech executives (96%) agreeing that FinOps is important to their cloud strategy, only 9% have a mature FinOps practice. These numbers remain fairly consistent with findings from the 2022 survey.

The biggest FinOps challenges include reducing cloud costs (50%) and forecasting cloud spend (47%). Only 19% of respondents reported that they have been able to make the most of discounted cloud purchase options.

"Spot by NetApp's 2023 State of CloudOps report is interesting because it shows that cloud cost management is not just a standalone process, but one that is inextricably linked with resource management, compliance, and security", said Hyoun Park, Chief Analyst at Amalgam Insights. "One cannot simply look at cloud costs in a vacuum without advocating for holistic cloud management. As companies seek to manage cloud costs, the sheer volume and variety of cloud cost service components leads companies to automate as they fully optimize and rationalize cloud resources to match business needs."

Methodology: The 2023 State of CloudOps report, sponsored by Spot by NetApp and conducted by Dimensional Research, examines the current state of CloudOps for large enterprise teams, primarily focusing on operational activities, staffing and expertise, automation, and FinOps. This report is based on an online survey of 310 US-based IT decision makers in operations or applications roles who are responsible for public cloud infrastructure investments at companies with 500 or more employees.