Robert Dimicco

2 min read

How crazy is this? We’ve found that large organizations on average use 172 compute, 157 marketing and sales and 62 finance services from the cloud. Some organizations use nearly double these amounts! Simply put, as businesses groups control more IT spend and purchase more cloud services, cloud sprawl is skyrocketing. A large organization now uses […]

1 min read

Cloud sprawl is a BIG challenge. Large companies use 730 individual cloud services – a number which has grown a staggering 21% in just six months. If you don’t know by now what your organization is using, you need to! At Cisco Live US 2015, Haley Gallant of the Cisco Cloud Consumption practice did a […]

2 min read

These are three conversations that I had recently with a partner, a customer, and a Cisco executive (not necessarily in this order): “Cloud refers to only private and hybrid cloud, right?” “I thought infrastructure-as-a-service is public cloud, not software-as-a-service.” “We know how much public cloud we are using because we know what infrastructure-as-a-services we are […]

2 min read

In the last two years, we’ve used Cisco Cloud Consumption Assessment and helped many customers discover and understand their cloud services, costs and security risks. The results are surprising! On average, enterprises use nearly 675 cloud services, have much more risk controls needing attention, and use the same cloud services across multiple categories like compute […]

3 min read

By the end of this year, Gartner predicts 1 of 4 cloud service providers (CSPs) will no longer be in business due to consolidation or lack of funding. Based on the explosive growth of cloud use, you are likely using SaaS to support business critical functions and IaaS compute or storage services from the cloud. […]

1 min read

Cloud sprawl is a huge, growing challenge. On average, large companies use 645 individual cloud services, which has grown 17% in just six months. What’s crazy is when you ask...

2 min read

Cloud brings enterprise technology capabilities to mid-market businesses. As such, mid-sized businesses are rapidly turning to cloud technology to gain a competitive edge. According to Deloitte’s latest technology survey of mid-market executives, 48 percent are using cloud services and 36 percent have pilot projects underway or are investigating cloud. I believe cloud use to be […]

2 min read

Reducing costs remains amongst the top reasons why organizations use public cloud services. However, when calculating the costs of public cloud services organizations need to look well beyond the license fees and billed costs. With Cisco Cloud Consumption Services, we have worked with numerous customers to discover their public cloud usage and analyze cloud spend. […]

3 min read

As enterprise cloud use extends to public, private, and hybrid clouds, CIOs and IT leaders are realizing the need to evolve their IT business model to become enterprise cloud service brokerage (CSBs). Cisco’s Scott Clark recently discussed the value of this new business approach for IT and highlighted that by adopting this approach IT can “provide the […]

2 min read

Shadow IT is estimated to be 20-40 percent beyond the traditional IT budget. The ease by which organizations can purchase apps and services from cloud service providers (CSP) contributes significantly to this spending. This is an eye-catching number worthy of investigation—not only to identify and reduce costs, but to discover business risks. So, it is […]

4 min read

2,000+ That is the approximate number of cloud services that Ken Hankoff, Manager of Cisco IT Risk Management’s Cloud and Application Service Provider Remediation (CASPR) Program believes Cisco’s 70,000 employees use. For the last 14 years, this program has assessed and remediated risks associated with using a cloud-hosted service. An assessment process for new cloud […]

3 min read

Do any web search on the inhibitors of moving to cloud and you’ll find a primary challenge rises to the top—business risk. The benefits of cloud often outweigh risks,...

1 min read

Organizations are rapidly moving critical data into the cloud, yet they still have serious concerns about security and other business risks. Read Bob Dimicco’s blog to learn several important steps companies can take to mitigate the risks of cloud services, such as uncovering shadow IT, assessing data security, and instituting cloud-specific employee policies.

1 min read

CIOs face a scary reality. They only know about 5-10% of the cloud applications that are being used within their organization. This shadow IT is ripping holes in their security strategies. In fact, a recent Forrester study cited that 43% of respondents said they believed shadow IT practices were major threats to their respective organizations. […]

2 min read

CIOs face a scary reality. They only know about 5-10% of the cloud applications that are being used within their organization. This shadow IT is ripping holes in their security strategies. In fact, a recent Forrester study cited that 43% of respondents said they believed shadow IT practices were major threats to their respective organizations. […]

3 min read

In many ways, the race to the cloud resembles the Wild West of the 1800s. The urgency with which business groups are rushing to adopt cloud services, often without IT involvement, resembles the race out to the western US of those looking for gold. With our customer engagements, we have found that there are 5-10 […]

2 min read

Recently, a bug in Internet Explorer made it possible for hackers to take over a user’s computer causing government agencies to suggest using a different browser. The Heartbleed flaw opened the door for encrypted data to be intercepted. These latest challenges highlight one thing inherent to any application—whether on premise or in the cloud—it is […]

4 min read

About two years ago, I went into a customer workshop on private cloud. As we were introducing ourselves around the table, the CIO turned to me with a pained expression and said, “Bob I have a different problem. My CFO and CEO just asked me if I knew how many of our users were accessing […]