Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2016. Read them in this 8th Annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Jeanne Morain, Author/Strategist – iSpeak Cloud
2016 – The Year of the Cs – Cloud, Compliance, Containers, and Control
As we celebrate with colleagues, family, and friends while we bring 2015 to a close we realize that what’s old becomes new. As we drink our egg nog and ponder the changes to come in this dynamic mobile social world focused on Users and Applications – we should not forget that many of the problems that were once solved are new again because of the shift in the technology, processes, and people over the years. When I think back to the workshops, CIO forum roundtables, and customer engagements that I have had in 2015 – I see a pattern that paints a very vivid picture like clouds on a canvas at the Venetian Hotel. CIOs are worried about the 4 C’s (Cloud, Compliance, Containers, and Control) and will be investigating solutions that work in the future in 2016 and beyond.
Cloud
Applications have evolved from physical to virtual to everything as a service but not all the underlying technologies have evolved with them. Companies are investing in creating cohesive Cloud strategies around managing their service offerings (applications) in hybrid cloud environments. Today, there are simply too many tools, vendors, and solutions to manage while still requiring manual intervention to replicate the environment to get them all to work. Just like management tools of the past, this kind of space is ripe for disruption and consolidation. Every company has some form of hybrid cloud – the question now is how can they contain costs, maintain compliance, and control the outcomes to insure continuous delivery, agility, and quality across infrastructure while reducing customer impact.
Compliance
Most people think of compliance as an impossible goal that is full of compromises. When we state compliance it is in regards to complying to regulatory, business, and security objectives. With the recent overturn of Safe Harbor regulations, executives are now faced with trying to solve the cloud conundrum on where the data lives. This is particularly problematic in areas like Healthcare that have strict regulations and rely on Big Data to aggregate information across countries for trends. CIOs, analysts, and implementation experts are all focused on maintaining compliance while harnessing these newer technologies around cloud, virtualization, big data, and Internet of Things. What attacks (such as Anthem) have taught us is that this area needs more focus on balancing. It needs to focus not only achieving compliance but also on the risks and costs around security and the business for time to value. As an industry we are starting to see more thought leaders coming together to address concerns around security in the cloud around Internet of Things. If you haven’t already, go ahead and check out the Online Trust Alliance. As this story unfolds we will not only see more solutions but we will also see more risks culminating in much needed change in people, processes, and technology.
Containers
In 2007 Application Virtualization rocked the Desktop world and it continues to give companies an alternative to deploying applications and data that follow their users. Containers are the Application Virtualization solution for servers. They promise the freedom of portability and mobility across hybrid clouds while reducing some of the cost and complexity of managing yet another operating system environment. We will start to see more features and products around managing containers in an effective, efficient, and elastic way in 2016 to combat sprawl and stall similar to virtualization when it first started.
Control
What the breaches at Sony, Anthem, and other major companies have taught us is that many terrorists use cyber attacks as well as physical attacks to ignite terror through financial and emotional fear. At the end of the day, companies are ultimately responsible for their applications, services, and people. As they become more interdependent on technology, we will see the rise of the CIO and IT morph from that as a service provider to a trusted advisor for their counterparts. More will have a seat at the C-Suite table as every role within the company will need to worry about setting up controls for costs, agility, compliance, and security. As a collective moving forward everyone in a company will be responsible for security.
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About the Author
Jeanne Morain is a virtualization and cloud expert, and is a Sr. Business and Product Strategist for Virtualization, Cloud and Systems Management. Previously, she held various executive roles in marketing, strategy, alliances, and product management at the Apollo Group, Flexera Software, VMware and BMC Software. Jeanne has more than 17 years of experience in systems management, virtualization and cloud computing, implementing solutions for millions of users across Fortune 2000 companies. She has won numerous awards including Cambridge Whos Who Lifetime Achievement award for her work in business service management (BSM) Universal clients, dynamic data center, and virtualization. She is the co-author of the highly acclaimed Visible Ops Private Cloud, author of Client4Cloud and most recently iSpeak Cloud. Jeanne is a noted industry speaker at such events as VMworld, InterOp, CloudSlam, IAITAM, BrightTalk, SoftSummit, Millenium Alliance Summits and many others. Jeanne hosts a monthly webcast on BrightTalk called iSpeak and blogs at www.ispeakcloud.com
