
Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2017. Read them in this 9th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by David Grimes, Vice President of Product Engineering, Navisite
4 Cloud Predictions for 2017
As we look back at the
changes that have taken shape over the past year in the cloud market, it's
incredible to see the speed at which the industry continues to evolve. With the
increasing push to digitization, cloud adoption is accelerating across
enterprises, both unlocking efficiency and fueling new business models.
Let's take a look at a few
trends to watch for in 2017 that will help set the stage for the next phase of cloud:
1. Multi-cloud will continue to dominate -- 2016
certainly made the case for multi-cloud deployments and we'll continue to see
this shift gain momentum in the year ahead. As deployments to the cloud have
increased, so has the complexity and sophistication with which organizations are using it. Cookie-cutter
clouds are a thing of the past - organizations now want to architect the best
environments to manage their specific applications, and as such, it's
becoming increasingly important to match application and workload with the
correct compute, networking, and storage.
2. Cloud talent shortage remains a sore spot: The talent crunch for modern IT skills has
made it increasingly difficult for businesses to find qualified workers with
cloud skills. There simply is not enough talent available to midsize
enterprises to enable them to confidently move to the cloud on their own and
ensure it's secure and governed properly. While attempts are being made
to close the talent gap through professional education and certification
programs, it will be sometime before skills set catches up to demand.
3. AI
and machine
learning will power the next generation of cloud security: Although the
cloud is being more widely adopted, cloud security remains a top concern
among enterprise IT professionals, especially as cyber villains become more
aggressive and their tactics more sophisticated. To combat this, innovators are working to move
from the old school anti-virus approach to a more transformative approach
informed by artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify any abnormalities
in the network. Cloud security continues
to move from
reactive to proactive to predictive and today's networks and cloud security
vendors are racing to make 2017 a story of these key technologies to join
forces and make cloud deployments safer than any other deployment model.
4. The
rise of infrastructure aware applications: As an alternative to an application aware
infrastructure model, an infrastructure-aware approach allows developers to build
an application in such a way that the app is actually aware of the
infrastructure that it's running on and recognizes that the infrastructure is
virtualized and has accessible APIs. The application can look at things that
aren't necessarily infrastructure-centric and can focus on metrics about the
application itself. From there, the app can take action on the infrastructure
based on its analysis of the environment. This moves the burden of autoscaling
from the infrastructure owner to the developers who need to understand the
notion that this application will run in this cloud-enabled infrastructure.
In the words of
Yogi Berra, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Still,
I'm confident that 2017 will be another momentous year for cloud computing.
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About the Author
As Navisite's
Cloud Expert, David Grimes is an innovative technology visionary responsible
for the strategic direction of the company's architecture and solutions. He has
been instrumental in leading both the design and development of the NaviCloud
platform. A leader focused on continuous process improvement through new and
enabling technologies, David frequently meets with clients to gain market
knowledge, evangelize Navisite's vision and develop solutions. Prior to joining
Navisite, David was a lead software engineer at AppliedTheory, where he was a
key member of the team responsible for developing the patented content delivery
technology DeltaEdge. David joined Navisite in 2002 through the acquisition of
Clear Blue where he was responsible for overseeing all internal and operational
support systems. Under his leadership, he led the transition to an in-house
platform that resulted in 50% infrastructure cost reduction. David is a
graduate of Syracuse University and holds a Bachelors of Science and Masters in
Computer Engineering.