Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2017. Read them in this 9th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Pat O'Day, CTO at Bluelock
Five Cloud Technology Predictions for 2017
The cloud industry had quite a year in 2016, with everything from Salesforce's outage which lost four hours of customer data, to the partnership between VMware and Amazon Web Services. As we enter a new year, the cloud industry will continue to introduce developments that make a splash in the IT world, changing the way companies do business and handle their data. I've compiled a list of five technology predictions for the cloud industry and how each will impact businesses and the delivery of service.
1. The number of data breaches in the enterprise will continue to eclipse the number of data breaches in the cloud
Security for sensitive data has been, and will continue to be, a hot button issue. While the initial move to the cloud made some uneasy for security reasons, this is no longer the case. Enterprises are realizing the cloud is more secure than what they can do themselves. If you don't believe me, count how many security breaches occurred in cloud environments in this listing, then compare them with the rest of the group. On top of this, customers now demand continuous service, which means that if you're not providing this constant availability, you'll be struggling to keep up in 2017.
2. Availability and resiliency will emerge more specifically in compliance regulations and legislation
To keep up with the demands of the modern world and increasing threats of intrusions, more compliance regulations and legislation will include IT resiliency as a standard requirement. There are a lot of contributing factors to this: an increased pressure for convenience, the possibility of getting fined or fired for a breach, personal risk mitigation, etc. This means that if you don't have an IT disaster recovery (DR) plan in place already, you'll be forced to implement one - and provide proof of it - in 2017. Changes for some industries have happened already. For example, HIPAA regulations now require healthcare providers to perform a business impact analysis (BIA).
3. Cloud adoption will become normal in even the most pragmatic industries, such as legal and healthcare
While apprehensive at first about their sensitive data being in a cloud environment, the most pragmatic industries are now getting on the cloud bandwagon. Why? Partly because the accessibility of cloud has created an expectation for continuous service, a focus that has driven intense competition for client retention. The other reason is that these industries are beginning to see the immense value in leveraging cloud for their business objectives. The legal industry, for example, is beginning to embrace cloud-based document management, using machine learning to set policies of data analysis - not just in finding information for court cases, but avoiding portions of data for plausible deniability.
4. Owning a datacenter will no longer be fashionable for most CIOs
Gone are the days of managing your own datacenter. More than ever, CIOs will spurn the complications of in-house datacenters and provision their hosting and recovery environments with trusted third-party vendors. This will offload "keeping the lights on" activities and enable IT teams to focus on giving back more meaningful value to their business.
5. Security incidents are increasingly considered disasters, leading to CISO ownership of BC/DR
Progressively, cybersecurity events are starting to occur in DR environments, since production environments receive the most attention and intruders have begun to view copies of critical data as low-hanging fruit. Security professionals have strengths in incident response and management, which means companies will look to the CISO for DR planning as the reputation fallout becomes a larger concern for brands.
##
About the Author
Pat O'Day, Chief Technology Officer for Bluelock, is responsible for defining Bluelock's services, spearheading its strategic vendor alliances and overseeing the solution strategy. He has more than 15 years of experience as an information technology professional, and serves on the advisory council for the School of Information Technology at Harrison College and NPower Indiana. O'Day also co-founded the local Association of Internet Professionals, and previously served as a board member of the technology peer group for TechPoint, and Zionsville Boys and Girls Club.
