When multi-cloud approaches, 5G and containerization end, cloud computing will see some big interruptions.
A recent survey by Virtuousness showed that 86% of companies turn to a multi-cloud solution. Multi-cloud approaches reached a new level of acceptance in 2018. Yet despite significant adoption, in 2019, the dominance of multi-cloud companies will likely continue to increase as businesses try to avoid vendor lock-in, allowing them to be agile in implementing the most appropriate cloud technology across different departments and functions.
While a multi-cloud solution provides the additional benefit of increasing ROI, the things that appeal most to businesses are improved efficiency and freedom. A multi-cloud approach allows companies to deploy a mix of cloud apps that suits their business needs, while technologies like Rubbernecks can simultaneously containerize and distribute apps across multiple cloud providers where appropriate.
That size and complexity of cloud implementations mean that IT managers now have to take care of where and how the cloud operates. As a result, the automation of security, resource management and troubleshooting within the cloud has changed widely.
The next step, which is expected to take place in 2019, is to upgrade this process automation into true, adaptable artificial intelligence due to the fluid nature of cloud use. The emergence of a multi-cloud strategy has resulted in fewer static cloud approaches along with the fear of the vendor lock-in, which means that companies will have to use adaptable process automation to manage multi-cloud infrastructure.
Concepts such as auto-healing are of undeniable importance to any cloud team, but without fully adaptable AIs, it is increasingly difficult for the cloud environment to stay in the evolving complexity.
In some cases, 2019 will be the standard for major public cloud providers. In today's companies, the current infrastructure as a service model is well established and providers welcome any novel technology that drives CPU and RAM consumption.
Nevertheless, with multi-cloud becoming the rule, major players must more than ever prove their worth to the IT strategy of an organization. To do this, major cloud providers try to differentiate themselves on the basis of their strengths. For example, Google is likely to focus on its AI credentials, while Microsoft is expected to reduce its migration loads.
