Cloud computing has been a major trend in IT for several years now. In 2018, cloud issues stayed at the top of the headlines. But will this momentum continue in 2019?
I speak almost daily with executives who manage cloud infrastructure for companies. Therefore, I have a good feel for the issues driving cloud decision makers and the topics that most concern them. Based on these conversations, I see the following six trends driving headlines for the year ahead.
Acquisitions
Massive growth is occurring as companies migrate from private to public cloud. This spurred much of the M&A activity we saw in 2018. This is perhaps the major issue that will drive the cloud in 2019. There is also a clear trend of enterprises buying “born in the cloud,” public cloud focused MSPs and ISVs, as that’s where the lack of enterprise expertise lies. Examples of this include Cox buying Rapidscale, HPE buying Cloud Technology Partners, Rackspace buying Datapipe, and VMware buying CloudHealth.
Mutli-cloud and hybrid cloud
Once predicted as the future, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud truly arrived in 2018. Most enterprises (74%) now describe their strategy as hybrid/multi-cloud. In addition, 62% of public cloud adopters are using 2+ unique cloud environments/platforms. These numbers will only go up in 2019.
Containers Become Mainstream
Application containerization is more than just a new buzz-word in cloud computing; it is changing the way in which resources are deployed into the cloud. More and more companies will utilize containers in 2019.
Automation
One of the biggest tech benefits to a DevOps approach is automating away the manual tasks that bog down critical projects. Thus, the trend toward automation continued to expand next year.
Dedicated cloud cost control teams
With the massive growth of cloud computing has come related issues of cost control. In 2019, more and more companies will have a dedicated person or even a team directing cloud cost optimization.
Rightsizing
Many companies have drastically overprovisioned cloud resources. Rightsizing is a way to reduce wasted cloud spend by resizing these resources. It can provide significant savings (up to 75%), often by simply moving a virtual machine down one size tier.
Cloud computing has changed the way we do business and it remains top-of-mind for most companies looking to evolve and stay competitive. While there will certainly be some surprises, look for these six trends to impact this dynamic sector into the new year and beyond.
