Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
2022: The Rise of Open Distributed Clouds
By Kamesh Pemmaraju, Head of Enterprise/Product Marketing, Platform9
With the increasing use of public cloud computing, the term “cloud-native” is commonly interpreted to mean the use of the proprietary capabilities of a public cloud service provider’s (CSP) platform.
Many companies have chosen to go all-in with a mono-cloud “CSP-native” strategy that puts all their eggs into one hyperscaler basket. Such a strategy exposes companies to a loss of control, a lack of visibility, and lock-in to the walled-garden of their chosen CSP. The consequences of such a non-diversified strategy are risky – just consider the recent large-scale business impact of multiple prolonged outages at a major hyperscaler CSP.
Enterprises need to evaluate their cloud-native options that are not fraught with the lock-in and cost escalation risks of a CSP-native walled-garden or that involve a lengthy, DIY approach for a management task that can be surprisingly complex and difficult.
The rise of the distributed cloud
To win in a hyper-competitive digital world, enterprises need to distribute value to customers where they want, when they want, and how they want it. Use cases and opportunities abound: creating in-store retail customer experiences that rival online shopping innovations, delivering faster and cheaper connectivity with private 5G networks, and enabling personalized connected car experiences. All of these innovations require the availability of cloud computing at the location and infrastructure of customer choice: private data centers or colo spaces, retail stores and warehouses, 5G radio towers, oil rigs, automobiles, and in multiple public clouds.
Integrating an option that democratizes cloud computing with an open, distributed-cloud service will be the way of the future. Such an option makes use of containers and open cloud-native technologies.
Kubernetes-native to the rescue
With the rising popularity of Kubernetes, cloud-native has become synonymous with Kubernetes-native. While still in the early stages of enterprise adoption, the use of Kubernetes has skyrocketed in just a few years.
The advantage of the Kubernetes-native approach is that you now have standard open APIs you can use to build applications that are truly portable across a wide variety of distributed infrastructure models and multiple public clouds, thus avoiding the walled garden of any one single CSP. However, enterprises face two challenges with this approach:
- It is complex to navigate the open-source ecosystem and take on more management responsibilities.
- It doesn’t deliver the complete set of services that are available in a CSP-native mode.
The second issue isn’t insurmountable. You can find an open-source equivalent of container-based software for almost any CSP-native service. Also, there is no real obstacle to leveraging CSP-native services, only as needed, from your container apps, thus reducing lock-in.
The first issue requires an architectural approach and an operational delivery model that does not rely on a CSP-native, closed-cloud control plane.
Emerging SaaS management of distributed clouds
We are starting to see the emergence of cloud-agnostic SaaS management of distributed clouds and infrastructure. Managing thousands of edge sites, multiple public clouds, and hybrid clouds requires multiple products and integration services that make it prohibitively expensive and difficult. By executing a single point of control with central SaaS management, the cost and effort of deploying applications, troubleshooting, and upgrading can be greatly reduced.
The pendulum is swinging back from a centralized CSP-native approach to a more distributed and open approach that is going to shape the landscape in 2022 and beyond. The benefits of agility, ease-of-use, and scalability that have been available thus far in public clouds will be available everywhere using open standards, thus enabling companies to adopt distributed clouds more broadly.
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Platform9 provides the #1 open distributed cloud service – powered by Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies. Learn more at platform9.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kamesh Pemmaraju, Head of Enterprise/Product Marketing, Platform9
Kamesh Pemmaraju leads Enterprise/Product marketing at Platform9. For the past decade, Kamesh has been working on various open source private and hybrid cloud solutions. He has helped several enterprises and service providers adopt cloud technologies at scale. Kamesh also brings strong product management, technology alliances, and Go To Market experience for emerging technologies
