
Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2018. Read them in this 10th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by John Arrasjid, Engineer Technologist, Office of the CTO and Office of Innovation, Virtustream
The Cloud Goes Critical
The year 2016 may have been one of the most
dramatic years on record for the cloud, but 2017 was no slouch either. From
cut-throat competition, eyebrow-raising co-opetition, and major advances in
cloud-based machine learning, 2017 was a pivotal - and productive - year for
the cloud, setting the stage for what looks like to be the most exciting year
yet.
The market swing is already in full force. Thanks
to a full-fledged embrace by the enterprise, the cloud is undergoing dramatic
transformation as vendors rush to meet the infrastructure and business needs of
today's top companies. According to Gartner, the overall market
likely grew close to 20 percent in 2017, and IaaS in particular saw close to 40
percent growth. With digital transformation at the top of every executive's
mind, it's likely that this trend will only accelerate. In fact, by 2020,
Gartner estimates that the overall market will reach a whopping $411 billion,
and IaaS $72 billion, 87 percent and 185 percent raises respectively from 2016.
What we considered in the realms of "crazy" 10
years ago is now a reality, and the leapfrogging will continue. Based on our
collective experience, interactions with customers and conversations with
colleagues, here are four key trends we see unfolding in 2018:
Deep
Learning
There's no doubt that 2017 was the year of
machine learning. Culminating in the blockbuster announcement of Gluon, a brand new
cloud-based open source machine learning platform, as well as other advances in
technologies, ML is finally set to become a real part of the enterprise
business strategy.
While advances in ML will continue in 2018,
expect this to lead major breakthroughs with deep learning as well. According to a new survey from Vanson Bourne,
80 percent of enterprises already have a form of AI in production today, and 30
percent are planning to expand their capabilities over the next three years.
Cloud providers are already anticipating this need, as some already allow
enterprises to leverage GPUs (the key piece of technology for deep learning)
for massive parallel computational power. Expect to see an explosion of deep
learning, as the costs for this service to drop thanks to commodification and more
cloud providers offer the service.
Smart
Cloud Infrastructure
As major advances in automation and machine
learning continue to make pace, expect to see the beginnings of more smart and
automated cloud infrastructures, ones that go beyond traditional automation and
can actually make seemingly human-like decisions about important decisions
around authorization, security, vMotion, dynamic resource scheduling, load
balancing, and self-healing environments. This will change the way IT
departments approach technology, with the same impact that virtualization had
when it was introduced to the market in 2003.
The
"Instant" Private Cloud
There may be quite a few disadvantages for
enterprises using a public cloud, but there is one main draw that keeps people coming
back: the simplicity of setup. As a result, despite all the drawbacks, many
companies continue to leverage public cloud for this reason alone, but with an
eye to providers focused on mission-critical workloads.
In the coming year, expect mission-critical
cloud providers to bring the public cloud experience on-premises. Private cloud
vendors will provide their own "one-click" setups for customers that will go
well beyond just having a server that is instantly up and running. Instead,
you'll get one that is pre-configured to the specific needs of your enterprise
before you even turn it on.
Continued
Co-opetition Among Cloud Vendors
Although 2017 had its fair share of drama, it
was also very much the year of market maturation. For example, VMware teamed up
with AWS and Pivotal announced a partnership with Google Cloud, all for the
good of the customers.
Cloud providers have three options: the
expensive route - they can go it alone, spend hundreds of millions of dollars
on acquisitions, or they can partner with their competitors to build ecosystems
that meet the unique needs of their customer base.
This year, expect to see more interesting (and
unexpected) partnerships develop, as cloud providers compete to meet the needs
of customers. It certainly looks as if 2018 will be the year of the specialized
cloud.
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About the Author
John Arrasjid is a member of the Virtustream Office of
the CTO and is responsible for strategic initiatives, IP development,
and public speaking for the technology office. He is co-founder of IT
Architect Resource, Inc., and an author of 6 books. John spent 12 years
with VMware and 3 years in the Office of the CTO with EMC. He was the
USENIX Association Board of Directors vice president, and was co-chair
for USENIX LISA 2016. John is a practicing cloud thaumaturgist.