Cloud Computing / 12 Important Facts About Shadow IT

12 Important Facts About Shadow IT

By Gina Roos | Posted 2016-04-21

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12 Important Facts About Shadow IT

Shadow IT's continued growth creates opportunities for service providers to help businesses deal with its associated risks—and deliver approved services.
Shadow IT Use Is Extensive

77% of respondents said that departments within their organization have used a cloud service without the involvement of the IT department, and 71% said shadow IT has been happening in their organizations for up to two years.
Shadow IT Is on the Rise

83% of respondents believe that Shadow IT will increase over the next two years.
Free Cloud Storage Use

70% of respondents believe that the usage of free cloud storage will increase over the next two years.
Skipping IT Approval

77% of respondents have used a third-party cloud app without the approval or knowledge of their IT departments.
Looking the Other Way

63% of business respondents are aware of other departments using cloud applications without notifying their IT departments.
Where Is Cloud Data Stored?

56% of respondents do not know which country their cloud-based data is stored in. Yet 80% believe that their data stored in the cloud is critical to running their departments.
Drivers for Shadow IT

Key factors spurring shadow IT are increased productivity (62%), increased efficiency (60%) and the fact that it frees up the IT department's time (58%).
Popular Cloud Services

Shadow IT cloud services in use include app software (SaaS) (56%); servers and storage (IaaS) (48%); public cloud (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure, Google Cloud Platform) (39%); and cloud-based virtual machines for development and testing (29%).
Popular Apps

83% of respondents use popular free, unregulated cloud storage applications, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Apple iCloud and Amazon Cloud Drive, for sharing company information.
Limiting Functionality

77% of respondents believe that the withdrawal of shadow IT cloud services would limit their department's functionality.
Cloud Amnesty

83% of business managers said they would participate in a "cloud amnesty" program in which users could turn in their shadow IT cloud contracts with no action taken.
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With the boom in cloud services, shadow IT will pose significant challenges for CIOs in the next two years, according to new research from NTT Communications. Users are aware that they are breaking their companies' IT policies and putting their organizations at risk for security problems. NTT's survey of 500 IT and line-of-business (LOB) decision-makers, reveals that nearly three-fourths of respondents said shadow IT cloud usage is against their companies' policies, but continue to use shadow IT cloud services for several reasons. They believe these unapproved cloud services enable them to increase efficiency, deliver higher productivity and free up the IT department. A key driver behind the use of unapproved cloud services is the proliferation of free apps that are easily downloaded. The challenge is not how to drive cloud adoption but how to manage it, said NTT. The continued growth of shadow IT opens up opportunities for service providers to deliver approved services required by LOB pros, while helping them deal with the risks associated with shadow IT. We look at key findings from the NTT report that will help solution providers better understand shadow IT.