Cisco launches cloud consumption monitoring service for smaller enterprises

Cisco is launching a service to better monitor cloud usage within an enterprise and better control so-called shadow IT.

The effort, Cisco Cloud Consumption as a Service, is aimed at helping smaller and mid-sized companies monitor the use of public cloud services. Cisco's Cloud Consumption as a Service discovers and monitors usage across a company.

Cisco's service will run $1 to $2 per user a month depending on a company's size. The offering is available via Cisco's channel. Cisco previously had a cloud consumption monitoring effort, but it was aimed at large enterprises and delivered through a services organization.

Robert Dimicco, senior director of advanced services at Cisco, said the cloud tool rolls up analytics, security risks, profiles and benchmarking. For instance, Cisco's cloud monitoring service even includes Dun & Bradstreet data to assess financial health of a vendor.

According to Cisco research, the average large enterprise uses 1,220 different cloud services. That sprawl can hamper a company's ability to comply with regulations and protect data. "Any vertical we've worked with in developed countries had ubiquitous (shadow IT)," said Dimicco.

Robert Florescu, vice president of IT at CityMD, a chain of health clinics, said he has used the Cisco service since the end of October. The main benefits were making sure CityMD didn't face any health regulation risks and visibility into how various teams were using cloud services.

Here's a look at some of the screens of the Cisco's cloud consumption monitoring service.