diff --git a/roles/servicetelemetry/tasks/component_clouds.yml b/roles/servicetelemetry/tasks/component_clouds.yml
index 9db8615ab..52c00f659 100644
--- a/roles/servicetelemetry/tasks/component_clouds.yml
+++ b/roles/servicetelemetry/tasks/component_clouds.yml
@@ -41,13 +41,13 @@
     - name: Set elastic_tls_server_name from forwarding config if set
       set_fact:
         elastic_tls_server_name: "{{ servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.tls_server_name }}"
-      when: servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.tls_server_name != ""
+      when: servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.tls_server_name | length > 0
 
     # This sets the server name based on the host part of the URL between // and : (https://elasticsearch-host:9200)
     - name: Set elastic_tls_server_name by parsing the host_url if it's not set in the config
       set_fact:
         elastic_tls_server_name: "{{ servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.host_url.rpartition('//')[-1].partition(':')[0] }}"
-      when: servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.tls_server_name == ""
+      when: servicetelemetry_vars.backends.events.elasticsearch.forwarding.tls_server_name | length == 0
 
     - name: Get the Elasticsearch TLS materials secret
       k8s_info: