Shadow IT is rampant. For years, CIOs have known that business groups were circumventing the IT department to access public cloud services they felt they needed to do their jobs. Only recently have CIOs begun to realize the full extent of the cloud sprawl across their organizations and the pitfalls for their business. To help CIOs manage their shadow IT issues, Cisco is launching Cloud Consumption as a Service—a new software-as-a-service product that discovers and monitors public cloud services an organization is using.
Recent analysis by Cisco reveals the extent of the shadow IT challenge. The average large enterprise now uses 1,220 individual public cloud services. That’s up to 25 times more than estimated by IT. And the average number of public cloud services has grown 112 percent over the past year, and 67 percent over the past six months. Even worse, there are significant business risks associated with uncontrolled adoption of public cloud services. These range from regulatory compliance and data protection, to business continuity, cost and service performance.
That’s where Cisco® Cloud Consumption as a Service comes into play. The primary function of the new service is to discover and continually monitor public cloud use across an organization. When combined with detailed analytics and benchmarking from Cisco, this insight helps businesses reduce security risks and better understand and manage costs. This helps IT team to partner more effectively with business groups and make educated decision about the right cloud services for the business.
To help customers understand how cloud governance can be simplified, Cisco is offering a free 30-day trial.
 Supporting Quote
“Organizations are facing an explosion in cloud use as business teams are going around the IT department to use public cloud services that they feel will help their business. This, in turn, is creating a huge challenge for IT leaders as the risks from security and compliance to data protection and business continuity increases. Cisco’s Cloud Consumption as a Service offering gives CIOs better visibility and insight into what services are being used and what they can do to control them. It helps our customers mitigate cloud risks, uncover redundant services to reduce costs, and compare providers and benchmark usage. Ultimately, it helps organizations strategically manage their cloud use and gain insight into their cloud roadmap.” Ziad Salameh, Managing Director & General Manager Gulf, Levant & Pakistan and Middle East Services Leader, Cisco.
 Price and Availability
The new Cisco Cloud Consumption as a Service is now available globally via qualified Cisco channel partners.  The new service is currently priced at approximately $1 to $2 dollars per employee per month, depending on the size of the business.