A recent poll of IT professionals on behalf of Netreo showed as companies move from an on-premises to a hybrid or fully hosted cloud model they will be spending more on IT monitoring and management tools. Additionally, while according to the survey most respondents feel they have adequate visibility over cloud-hosted IT functions, the research did uncover some areas for concern.

The study, conducted by market researchers VansonBourne, showed that 67% of respondents would be more likely to invest in new monitoring and management tools moving to the cloud. Another 12% were undecided. As for the confidence of current visibility into its cloud-hosted applications, 76% of respondents feel they have adequate visibility, but 24% say their companies either don’t have or unsure if they do.

What may be the most surprising news here is just 74% of those in the financial services industry feel they have visibility despite the potential for significant losses, both financial or in reputation, due to a data breach. In fact, a Cloud Security Alliance survey unanimously showed financial services firms have security concerns about cloud adoption and the 26% not confident in their monitoring may pose higher risks to future breaches.

“Netreo’s products are designed to be an extension of our customers’ IT departments in the same way that the cloud should be an extension of the in-house data center,” said Kevin Kinsey, Netreo CEO and co-founder. “Based on these results, it becomes clear that the relationship between the cloud and on-premise data centers isn’t as seamless as it could be. While most organizations monitor and a majority have even built in some level of redundancy, in many cases that complicates matters further. This, coupled with the fact that not all of them monitor at all shows there is still much room for improvement.”

Here are some other interesting findings from this survey:

• When it comes to monitoring tools, most rely on more than one option as 47% saying they use third-party tools, tools developed in house and those provided by their Cloud Service Provider (CSP). Conversely, only 21% noted not using any of these three. Those using a single solution indicated using a third-party app was preferred with 29% say that's all they use. 

• Despite the majority of companies monitoring cloud services, just 38% reported using IT monitoring and management tools for virtualization.

• Companies in IT-related industries are the most pragmatic with a resounding 90% saying they have adequate visibility and 95% noting they monitor cloud apps.

• Eighty percent of manufacturing respondents said they have enough visibility into cloud-hosted IT, but only 67% monitor cloud apps — the lowest of the five key industries polled.

The research was conducted by VansonBourne polled 199 U.S. IT professionals in December 2016 working in organizations with more than 1,000 employees in business and professional services; financial services; IT; retail, distribution and transport; manufacturing; and other commercial services.