Cloud sprawl and data integration

I read a really interesting article today on Processor.com (I have no way of explaining why I was on this website).  Anyway, the article titled Cloud Integration Services gives a very interesting overview of some the more prevalent issues businesses are realizing by adopting cloud based services.  A parallel here: in our experience working in the SQL Server space, there was a real problem with something called “SQL Server sprawl” due to the fact that this particular database is  so easy to implement and bring online.  Well, in the cloud space there is an amazing ability to experience this same type of “sprawl”.  With non-technical users able to deploy an application without IT sign off, the risk of having fragmented data stores and greatly increasing the data management challenge for the organization.  I won’t continue trying to paraphrase the article as it’s totally worth reading.  I will say this, it’s very surprising to me to see how cloud based services bring the difficulty of application deployment down to a level where a potential ‘every person’ can deploy an app and cause such data management issues.  A familiar issue in a whole new light.