Enterprises are increasingly adopting Kubernetes. In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2026 more than 90% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production, an increase from fewer than 40% in 2020. And IDC reports that 80% of new workloads are being developed in containers.

Have you considered cloud portability, i.e., the ability to easily move workloads between on-premises systems and across multiple cloud service providers (CSPs)? The idea is that workloads should run in the environment that delivers the most value for your organization, but as that “optimal” environment can change over time, you need to be able to move your workloads accordingly.

Digital transformation, no matter what form it takes within your organization, is a high-stakes initiative to deliver strategic impact to the business. The cloud is a pivotal enabler to that effort. But there’s a flip side—challenges related to migrating and managing workloads in the cloud can have a negative impact on the success of your transformation efforts.

Given the strategic importance of the cloud and size of cloud expenditures, it’s critical for enterprises to have solid controls in place to manage it all. According to our latest research, however, while most organizations agree with that sentiment, very few have put it into practice. There are distinct but related disciplines that come into play: FinOps and cloud governance. In this two-part series, we explore current state of each.