By Michal Frenkel, VP of Product, CloudShare

2020 will be very cloudy

I think most of us agree the cloud will be a major component of every enterprise's strategy in 2020. If the cloud is not already a key piece, then your organization is behind.

There are many different uses for cloud technology, both public and private. From storage to computing to analysis to training, the versatility of the value the cloud can provide is seemingly endless. Advancements in the new year will be focused on the specific benefits different aspects of the cloud can bring to enterprises. Here are four things we expect to see in 2020.

1)    Emergence of specialized clouds categories - With the continued growth and maturation of the cloud, we are seeing many different specialized use cases. In 2020, we will see analyst firms begin to recognize specialized clouds as a new and distinct enterprise category. "Cloud," much like security, as a single category will no longer be able to accommodate all the complex use cases we see emerging on a regular basis.

2)    More multi-cloud approaches - We'll continue seeing increased competition between the big commodity cloud service providers (CSP) like AWS, Azure, Oracle and Google. They will compete with incentives and low price points. For those enterprises that already have relationships with commodity vendors, being able to operate purpose-built, best-of-breed platforms, like virtual labs, within different large CSP environments presents an ideal situation.

In most cases, enterprises would prefer to leverage a multi-cloud approach and avoid aligning with just one provider, as competition lowers prices while increasing flexibility and other benefits. That said, in 2020 we'll see many more companies adopting multi-cloud strategies, coupled with specialized and commodity CSPs forming lucrative relationships.

3)    Greater learning by doing - Virtual labs have greatly simplified the creation of interactive and dynamic environments that mirror the world in which we live and allow students to work with real-life scenarios, all without the risk of breaking anything.

In 2020, we will see gamification, which has long been used in cybersecurity with capture-the-flag and similar events, become applied to different areas within enterprise training.

4)    A more blended approach to training - Large and growing enterprises will adopt a more blended training strategy in order to scale in the year ahead. A combination of on-demand training and virtual instructor led training (VILT), will provide the best approach to creating the assistance and needed reach to accommodate larger groups with diverse needs. As training grows in sophistication, how it's delivered and accessed will need to keep pace and the cloud is ideally suited for that challenge.

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About the Author

As CloudShare's VP of Product, Michal's mission is to translate CloudShare's vision into reality. Michal brings to CloudShare many years' experience in product and project management along with extensive experience as a software developer. She holds an MSc in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University.