How the Cloud Will Change 2018
A lot can happen in a year’s time, especially when it comes to technology. Cloud technologies, specifically hybrid cloud technologies, serve as expressways to unlocking epic enterprise cloud transformations. And it’s not slowing down as 2018 will usher another banner period for business and cloud. Looking toward the year ahead is exciting. Here are my predictions for how the cloud’s changes will affect business in 2018.
Major security fumbles over the past year reminded many of the importance of cybersecurity. This past year, an epidemic of misconfigured AWS S3 buckets resulted in continued data leaks. A massive Equifax breach exploited poor security measures, affecting millions. Stories like this will continue to emerge due to the access a variety of people have to the hyper scale cloud, and how little controls exist.
The good news is that implementing cloud solutions means integrated security is within reach for many. Most customers look for certifications and compliance within their managed cloud providers such as PCI, HIPAA, SAE16, and so on. Enhanced detection, improved response, and robust protection are fast becoming industry standards, and table stakes for managed service providers.
Businesses are looking for their ‘best’ cloud, and in many situations, the answer to this question is “several” or “all”. The multi-cloud hybrid approach will feature the power of flexibility, technology choices, and vendor choice, built to suit an organization’s exact needs. Multi-cloud means private clouds, multiple public clouds, dedicated hosted infrastructure, and other off-premises options are all game, delivering advantages like cost performance, preferred technology, data management capabilities, reliability, avoiding vendor lock-in, and flexibility.
There’s no getting around the fact that multi-cloud adoption means ongoing application changes ahead. Backups, replication, failovers, and other cloud changes will change traffic profiles to the web and within applications built for scale and specifically built for multi-cloud. Multi–cloud adoption is a catalyst for application scale, redundancy, and resiliency.
Public clouds are powerful, quick, and easy, but all too often fall out of projected cost models. CFO’s and other decision-makers will continue to look for ways to optimize the cloud while maintaining existing benefits and growth.
AWS, Microsoft, and Google offer a dizzying myriad of consumption and cloud resource pricing plans. In 2018, innovative ways of constructing environments, including multi-cloud, hybrid environments, and orchestration will be key to the sanctity of IT budgets. Companies that partner with a properly managed cloud provider who can leverage all the tools in the toolbox will be in a position of advantage over competitors. The key is to implement the most features possible from a myriad of cloud choices while mitigating costs – an indicator that multi-cloud adoption will continue to grow.
AI, IoT, and multi-cloud push compute to the ‘edge’ of clouds, aided by changing networks, increased specialized applications, and evolving hardware. 5G mobile networks are coming, slated for 2020. On a collision course with the cloud, faster network speeds, increased coverage, and ever-more powerful handsets mean the expectations for application experiences will rise. Demands for availability, response, and data not just in the major league cities, but also in the minor league cities will also increase. The time to evaluate and build for this future is now, and the way to deliver exists in hybrid and multi-cloud technologies with a keen eye for the edge. Burst capabilities, edge-based cloud, and geo-location, will be the norm for applications soon.
If you haven’t already noticed Artificial Intelligence (AI) in your technology stack, get ready.
