Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Brian Kuhn, Chief Digital Officer, OVHcloud
IT leaders face greater complexity as cloud strategies mature
Last year, 451 Research
released a report that indicated by 2019 60
percent of IT workloads will run in the cloud. In the past year, we have seen a significant shift
from cloud as a method of finding cost savings to cloud as a transformative
platform for driving business growth. The message from cloud providers used to
be focused on the economics - move to the cloud to shift from capital
expenditures to operating expenditures and lower your Total Cost of Ownership.
We see now that the value isn't necessarily in potential cost savings, but in
how we enable our customers to be fast and agile while protecting their most
important currency - their data. Looking forward, 2019 will present a new set
of challenges for many organizations in their cloud journey, and an opportunity
for cloud providers to partner with their customers in new ways.
Multi-Cloud
Continues to Grow in Popularity
According to IDC, by 2020, more than 90
percent of enterprises will use multiple cloud services and platforms. Most
organizations began as multi-cloud as a result of shadow IT and a lack of
oversight and visibility into cloud procurement and management. Going forward,
it will be a purposeful strategy. The public cloud isn't a one-size-fits-all solution,
and even as organizations choose a strategic cloud partner to host a majority
of their applications, they will find better fits for some of their legacy
workloads elsewhere. IT leaders will be challenged with evaluating, procuring,
and managing multiple cloud platforms, and delivering a seamless cloud
experience to their end users.
Continued
Focus on the Big Three Pieces of Legislation that Hit in 2018
2018
was a significant year for legislation that impacts data centers and the
customer data within. Three pieces in particular are worth keeping an eye on in
the coming year:
Net neutrality: A year later,
cloud providers will continue to wrestle with maintaining an open and free
Internet for their customers. In 2019, there will be even more emphasis on
preserving the freedom of what users want to see, when they want to see it, and
how much they're going to pay for it.
GDPR: As customer data
proliferates and expands its residence to edge devices, data sovereignty will
be a huge challenge in 2019. Infrastructure providers must be intentional in
instilling proper data regulations across the board to ensure they remain
complaint and avoid million-dollar fees. US organizations will continue to
struggle with GDPR compliance, due to different standards of compliance in the
US and in the EU, and the amount of interpretation required to determine their
compliance position.
CLOUD Act: Data sovereignty will not
only affect Europe but will hit close to home on U.S. soil as well. In 2019, as
the emphasis on the security of customer data spreads, we'll see data
sovereignty become a global issue that businesses worldwide will have to cope
with (e.g. the California
Privacy Act).
Disaster
Recovery will continue its shift towards IT Resilience
Data
protection and uptime will continue be a priority to businesses of all sizes. Disaster
Recovery has largely been a reactive exercise, but many more organizations will
find a proactive stance necessary to protect their business. IT leaders will
look to host their data in a minimum of two locations with significant distance
between them, and disaster recovery will expand outside the data center to
establish true redundancy and IT continuity. For many, their solution will be
cloud-based Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS). Recovery time objective (RTO)
and recovery point objective (RPO) requirements will continue to drop as the
pace of doing business speeds up. In 2019, the fundamental question will shift
from, "How do I protect my business in case of an emergency?" to, "How do I
ensure continuous availability of my data and applications?"
2019 and Beyond
In the coming year, IaaS providers will find new ways to
cater to mid-market and even small business market use cases, enabling
businesses both large and small to take full advantage of the cloud, meeting
and eventually exceeding 451 Research's forecast. The multi-cloud will continue
to grow. Businesses worldwide will need to adjust their IT strategy to
accommodate the latest legislation. And data centers will transition from a
mindset of recovery to resilience. With these trends in motion, 2019 will be
another year of significant growth in the cloud market.
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About the Author
Brian Kuhn is a member
of the OVH executive team, serving as the Chief Digital Officer and Acting
General Manager for OVH US. Brian shares joint responsibility with
his French counterparts to develop and debut the OVHcloud brand for global
availability -- prioritizing customer experience and delivering OVH
infrastructure and cloud solutions that effectively meet customer needs.
His tenure with industry
giants including YP, AT&T, eBay, Palm, and HP led him to building brand
experiences for millions of users and managing critical Fortune 100 customer
relationships. Brian has built product and marketing organizations that scaled
quickly to put customer needs at the forefront of the business.