Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Manoj Nair, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, HyperGrid
Industry and Organizational Changes On The Horizon
By any measure, 2018 was a significant year in cloud
innovation and adoption. Businesses across market segments looked to cloud as
part of their digital transformation efforts, resulting in 77 percent of
enterprises now having at least one application or a portion of their computing
infrastructure in the cloud, according to IDG's 2018
Cloud Computing Study. For anyone still unsure, we have officially
reached the turning point - cloud is here, it is the future and anyone still
holding out is only falling further behind!
As we look ahead to 2019, the growing wave of private,
public and hybrid cloud adoption, highlights some critical holes that must be
filled, presents opportunities for the integration of other next-gen
technologies with cloud, and indicates a continued shift in how businesses
spend money. Below are four trends that will drive cloud market evolution in
the coming year:
1. Reduction
In Spend On New Data Centers
This one may seem obvious,
however despite the continued growth in cloud adoption, businesses so far have
continued to invest in building out or expanding on premise data centers. In
recent years, spending on data center systems has started
to level off which Gartner predicts will continue to happen, growing
only 1.1 percent in 2019. A year from now, I believe we will look
back and be able to say that 2019 was the beginning of the coming year will be
the beginning of a downward trend in IT spend on new data centers, with most
businesses budgets instead going to updating or maintaining current
infrastructure. The economics of the cloud and availability of next-gen
solutions for managing hybrid cloud environments will be at an all time high
and too appealing to ignore.
2. AI Taking A Hold In The Cloud
No, I haven't been living
under a rock, and yes, I'm aware that everyone is talking about Artificial
Intelligence (AI) already. With the caveat out of the way, I ask that you give
me a moment to extrapolate, as I believe AI will move a layer deeper this
coming year.
To date, AI has primarily
permeated the application layer, providing increased efficiencies to businesses
by automating and orchestrating data center and network data traffic in a
programmatic way. The benefits of this have been profound, however I believe
2019 will see us cross the chasm from application AI to whole cloud AI. Today
this seems foreign. However, in the new cloud-centric world, AI in the cloud
makes a lot of sense, especially as businesses increasingly adopt hybrid cloud
IT strategies to maximize capabilities and budget. In the coming year,
businesses will explore the potential benefits of leveraging AI within their
cloud deployment decision making, and determine that the technology holds
promise far beyond the traditional data center, autonomous car and smart home
applications being hyped the most today.
3. Market
Consolidation Anticipated
Despite 2018 seeing some
significant purchases of both startup and longstanding hybrid cloud management
companies, I believe we will see increased consolidation in the coming year. Traditional
data center equipment and cloud providers will look to improve cross-cloud
management for their vast user bases, resulting in further consolidation. Top
of their list will be companies and/or solutions that simplify cloud planning,
management and orchestration, as well as those that help customers maximize
cloud spend (and eliminate cloud wastage).
4. Massive
Re-Training Effort To Begin
Having worked with numerous
companies across a variety of industries, I can tell you from first-hand
experience that everyone underestimates the level of IT expertise and staff
required for an effective and efficient digital transformation. In fact, I feel
very confident in saying that no matter the size of your team or their cloud
experience or skillset, you will fall short of what's required for the vast
majority of digital transformations to succeed. That realization isn't meant to
speak ill of your team. Rather, it is meant to acknowledge the fact that
traditional data center and cloud-centric environments require vastly different
skillsets.
In 2019, I believe we will
see IT professionals across companies and industries seek training in mass in a
variety of topics not covered in depth during traditional IT and/or developer
programs. Drilling a layer down, I believe deep dives into leading public
clouds and cloud cost management will be at the top of the list for both current
IT staff and students.
Next year promises to be an exciting one. With cloud
adoption on the rise and IT budgets continuing to be stretched thin, I believe
we are on the cusp of a cloud avalanche, with businesses of all sizes realizing
they have a "cloudy" future and that the wait is over.
##
About the Author
Manoj Nair is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at HyperGrid. Manoj
is responsible for the Technology directions, Product Management,
Marketing and Engineering activities at HyperGrid. Previously Manoj was
at HPE, where he was GM and VP of Product Management for Converged
Infrastructure. His team was responsible for driving the Product
Strategy and Roadmap across all elements of the Converged Cloud
Portfolio. Prior to HPE, Manoj was SVP leading strategy and R&D for
Public Cloud at EMC Federation. This was an incubation team driving
cloud strategy and investments across the EMC & VMware federation of
companies. Previously, Manoj was SVP & GM at RSA - responsible for
IAM & Authentication product lines and a big consumer of Public
Cloud Platforms like AWS. He also was part of the seed team that drove
the establishment of RSA Security Analytics business unit and ran
Product and R&D for that business. Manoj also led R&D for EMC's
internal incubation spin out, EMC Infoscape, as well as the architecture
of the EMC PowerPath product family. Manoj has also held R&D
positions at Data General, Novell and US NSF funded Research Labs. He is
also the holder of over a dozen patents granted by USPTO in Systems
Software, File systems, Information Management and Security. Manoj holds
a M.S. in Computer Science from Clemson University.