What Is Cloud Sprawl?

Cloud sprawl refers to the uncontrolled growth and proliferation of cloud resources, services, and accounts within an organization.

What Does the Term Cloud Sprawl Mean?

Cloud sprawl is the situation in which an organization’s cloud environment expands rapidly and in an uncoordinated manner, often as a result of decentralized decision-making, self-service provisioning, and the ease of deploying cloud services. Over time, this leads to an excessive number of cloud resources, such as virtual machines, storage volumes, databases, and applications, spread across multiple providers, regions, or accounts without proper tracking, governance, or optimization.

This uncontrolled growth can result in higher operational costs, increased security vulnerabilities, compliance challenges, and difficulties in managing performance or resource utilization. Cloud sprawl is typically driven by the lack of centralized visibility and policy enforcement, making it difficult for IT teams to identify redundant, underutilized, or unauthorized assets and to maintain a secure, cost-effective cloud infrastructure.

Types of Cloud Sprawl

Cloud sprawl manifests in different ways within an organization’s environment. Cloud sprawl types are generally based on the scope, origin, or deployment model of the resources involved. Understanding these variations helps identify the specific sources of inefficiency and security risk:

• Public cloud sprawl. Occurs when multiple public cloud accounts, services, or subscriptions are created without centralized oversight. This often results in overlapping services, duplicated workloads, and unused resources that continue to incur costs.
• Private cloud sprawl. Happens within on-premises or dedicated private cloud environments when teams spin up virtual machines, storage, or network resources without lifecycle management. Over time, orphaned resources consume capacity and reduce performance efficiency.
• Hybrid cloud sprawl. Arises when organizations use both public and private cloud environments without coordinated management. Inconsistent provisioning, monitoring, and governance across platforms make it difficult to maintain control, track usage, and enforce security policies.
• Multi-cloud sprawl. Develops when multiple public cloud providers are used for different workloads or departments without unified governance. This creates complexity in managing security, compliance, and cost across diverse platforms and APIs.
• Shadow IT cloud sprawl. Results from departments or employees procuring cloud services without approval or integration into the organization’s official infrastructure. These unsanctioned services are often invisible to IT, leading to security gaps, compliance risks, and unexpected expenses.

Examples of Cloud Sprawl

Cloud sprawl can be seen in common scenarios where cloud resources grow unchecked and unmanaged. Here are some typicalexamples:

• Multiple unused virtual machines across AWS accounts after a testing phase ends, with no one decommissioning them, continuing to generate monthly costs.
• Duplicate storage buckets in Azure Blob Storage created by different teams for similar projects, leading to unnecessary storage expenses and data fragmentation.
• Redundant SaaS subscriptions where different departments independently pay for the same cloud-based collaboration tool without a centralized license agreement.
• Orphaned databases in Google Cloud that remain active after the associated applications are retired, consuming resources and posing security risks.
• Separate cloud environments for each development team without shared governance, resulting in overlapping networking configurations, inconsistent security controls, and billing complexity.

What Causes Cloud Sprawl?

Cloud sprawl is caused by a combination of organizational, technical, and operational factors that allow cloud resources to be created more quickly than they can be effectively tracked or managed. The most common drivers include the ease and speed of cloud provisioning, which enables teams to deploy infrastructure and applications without lengthy approval processes, often bypassing centralized IT oversight.

Decentralized purchasing or the lack of a unified cloud strategy prompts departments to procure services independently, leading to duplication and inefficiency. Poor visibility into existing resources, combined with inadequate tagging, inventory management, or monitoring tools, makes it difficult to identify unused or redundant assets.

Additionally, the growing adoption of multi-cloud and hybrid environments increases complexity, while shadow IT further contributes to unmanaged growth. Finally, insufficient governance policies, lifecycle management practices, and accountability structures allow these issues to compound over time, creating an environment where unused, duplicate, or misconfigured resources persist unnoticed.

What Gets Affected by Cloud Sprawl?

Cloud sprawl impacts multiple aspects of an organization’s cloud operations, from cost efficiency to security posture. Key areas affected include:

• Operational costs. Untracked and unused resources lead to higher monthly bills, with redundant workloads, idle virtual machines, and overprovisioned storage consuming budget without delivering value.
• Security posture. Unmanaged or forgotten resources often lack the latest patches, security configurations, or monitoring, making them vulnerable to attacks and increasing the organization’s exposure to threats.
• Compliance and governance. Uncontrolled cloud growth makes it harder to maintain regulatory compliance, as undocumented assets may store sensitive data without proper encryption, logging, or audit trails.
• Performance and resource utilization. Orphaned or inefficiently configured workloads consume bandwidth, CPU, and storage that could otherwise be allocated to active services, leading to degraded performance in critical applications.
• IT management and visibility. Lack of centralized tracking complicates resource inventory, usage reporting, and capacity planning, making it harder for IT teams to optimize infrastructure and enforce policies.
• Collaboration and workflow efficiency. Duplicate or siloed services across departments can fragment workflows, cause data inconsistency, and create integration challenges between tools and platforms.

How to Identify Cloud Sprawl?

Identifying cloud sprawl involves assessing the organization’s cloud environment to detect unmanaged, redundant, or underutilized resources before they cause excessive costs or security risks. This typically starts with conducting a comprehensive inventory of all cloud assets across accounts, regions, and providers, ensuring that each resource is tagged and associated with an owner, project, or cost center.

Usage metrics should be reviewed to identify idle virtual machines, low-access storage volumes, inactive databases, and redundant services. Cost analysis can reveal unexpected charges that point to forgotten or duplicated resources. Security and compliance audits may uncover shadow IT services or assets operating outside governance policies.

Cross-departmental reviews can also help identify overlapping tools or workloads procured independently. Automated cloud management platforms and native provider tools, such as AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, or Google Cloud’s Asset Inventory, can streamline this process by centralizing visibility, usage reporting, and alerts for unusual activity or resource drift.

How to Manage Cloud Sprawl?

Managing cloud sprawl requires a combination of governance, process discipline, and tooling to maintain control over cloud resources while still enabling flexibility for teams. The process typically begins with establishing clear cloud governance policies that define how resources are provisioned, tagged, monitored, and decommissioned. Implementing mandatory resource tagging standards ensures that every asset is associated with an owner, project, and cost center, making tracking and cost allocation easier.

Centralizing visibility through cloud management platforms or native provider dashboards helps IT teams monitor usage, detect idle or redundant resources, and enforce lifecycle management. Regular audits, both automated and manual, are essential to identify orphaned assets and align resource allocation with actual demand. Cost optimization practices, such as rightsizing instances and leveraging reserved or spot instances where appropriate, further reduce waste.

Integrating approval workflows for new resource provisioning prevents uncontrolled growth, while educating teams on cost implications, security policies, and best practices promotes responsible usage. For multi-cloud or hybrid environments, using unified monitoring and policy enforcement tools ensures consistency across all platforms, reducing the risk of unmanaged expansion.

Who Manages Cloud Sprawl?

Cloud sprawl management typically involves several roles within an organization, each contributing to visibility, governance, and optimization efforts:

• Cloud administrators. Responsible for day-to-day management of cloud resources, enforcing governance policies, and ensuring that provisioning, monitoring, and decommissioning follow established guidelines.
• IT operations teams. Oversee the operational health of the cloud environment, monitor resource utilization, and work to eliminate redundant or idle assets to maintain efficiency.
• Cloud architects. Design and implement the organization’s cloud strategy, selecting tools and frameworks that reduce complexity and improve scalability while minimizing the risk of sprawl.
• FinOps teams. Specialize in cloud cost management, analyzing billing data, identifying unused or underutilized resources, and recommending actions to optimize spending.
• Security teams. Ensure that all cloud assets, especially those discovered during sprawl audits, comply with security policies, patching requirements, and regulatory standards.
• Department managers. Play a role in controlling sprawl within their own teams by approving cloud resource requests, promoting responsible usage, and ensuring alignment with organizational policies.
• Governance or compliance officers. Oversee adherence to regulatory frameworks, internal governance models, and audit requirements, ensuring that cloud usage remains secure, compliant, and well-documented.

What Are the Risks of Cloud Sprawl?

Cloud sprawl poses several risks that can affect an organization’s finances, security, compliance, and operational efficiency:

• Increased costs. Idle, duplicate, or oversized resources continue to accrue charges, driving up monthly cloud bills without delivering proportional business value.
• Security vulnerabilities. Untracked or forgotten resources may lack security patches, proper configurations, or monitoring, making them potential entry points for cyber attacks.
• Compliance violations. Undocumented assets storing sensitive data can lead to noncompliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS, resulting in fines and legal exposure.
• Reduced visibility and control. The more unmanaged resources there are, the harder it becomes for IT teams to maintain accurate inventories, enforce policies, or quickly respond to incidents.
• Performance degradation. Redundant or misconfigured workloads consume bandwidth, CPU, and storage capacity, impacting the performance of critical applications.
• Operational inefficiency. Teams may waste time managing overlapping services or reconciling data across multiple redundant platforms, slowing down workflows and decision-making.
• Shadow IT expansion. If sprawl includes unsanctioned services, they may operate outside corporate security and monitoring systems, further increasing risk exposure.

What is the Difference Between Cloud Sprawl and Shadow IT?

Here’s a concise comparison of cloud sprawl and shadow IT: