The High Cost of “Set and Forget”: Why Cloud Needs Continuous Operations, Not Just Migration

Introduction

A report by Gartner estimates that 70% of cloud cost overruns are from poor operational practices after migration. Many businesses rush to move their infrastructure to the cloud but fail to manage it effectively afterwards. The initial excitement of “going cloud” fades, and what follows is an accumulation of inefficiencies: rising costs, overlooked security gaps, performance issues, and a growing disconnect between business goals and cloud usage.

Cloud migration is not the finish line. It is the start of a journey that requires active management, optimisation, and alignment with business needs. When organisations treat the cloud as a “set and forget” solution, they lose visibility, control, and value over time.

Understanding the impact

Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer incredible flexibility. They enable businesses to scale resources on demand, access cutting-edge services, and innovate more quickly. But this flexibility comes with complexity.

Without structured cloud platform operations, businesses often experience:

• Unpredictable costs: Often from services that were left running, storage that grew unnoticed, and bandwidth that spiked without oversight.
• Performance degradation: As workloads increase, systems slow down without proper scaling policies.
• Security vulnerabilities: Misconfigured resources, outdated access controls, and a lack of continuous monitoring create risks.
• Operational silos: Different teams deploy resources independently without a central governance framework.

Cloud success doesn’t come from simply “being on the cloud.” It comes from how well you manage, optimize, and align your cloud usage with business objectives.

CIL Perspective

At Cecure Intelligence Limited, we’ve observed that many organisations mistakenly view the cloud as an infrastructure problem solved by the IT department at deployment. But the cloud is a living environment. It evolves as business needs change, technology advances, and workloads fluctuate.

We’ve seen companies where development teams spin up environments without cost visibility, security teams lack oversight on configurations, and business units are unaware of how cloud spend impacts their budgets. This fragmented approach leads to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

Effective Cloud Platform Operations (CPO) requires continuous collaboration across teams. It’s about establishing a governance model where infrastructure, security, finance, and business stakeholders work together to:

• Monitor cloud usage in real-time.
• Identify optimisation opportunities.
• Ensure compliance and security baselines.
• Align cloud strategies with business priorities.

When this operational discipline is missing, the business slowly loses its ability to control cloud outcomes.

CIL Support Services

Our Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provides robust protection for your IT environment.

We provide 24/7 proactive threat monitoring and detection to neutralize threats in real time and prevent breaches. Our incident response and remediation capabilities help us to quickly identify and mitigate risks and downtime.

We help improve your security posture and reduce the risk of undetected breaches by integrating up-to-date threat intelligence and conducting proactive threat hunting. Our vulnerability management services ensure potential weaknesses are identified and addressed before they .

Conclusion

The journey to cloud success does not end at migration. Without continuous operations, businesses risk turning their cloud investments into cost centres rather than value drivers.

A proactive, disciplined approach to Cloud Platform Operations ensures that cloud environments remain agile, secure, and aligned with business goals. The cloud is dynamic. Your operations should be too.