FEATURE: 2019 TECHNOLOGY FORECAST
Jake Madders, Director at Hyve
Managed Hosting
and hybrid computing strategies as IoT
and the global network of sensors pile on
more data than the average cloud has had
to handle in the past. This transition will
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
models that only enterprises could truly
deal with the management overheads for.
By piecing together the right services from
the right suppliers, multi-cloud services
are often likely to be the best technical
solution for a company. However, multi-
cloud often requires a middle service
management tier to help remove the pain
of the contractual, commercial and support
model variations. Managed service providers
and the management tool marketplace
are continuing to evolve at pace to support
this demand and deliver simplicity, making
multi-cloud solutions accessible to SME
and SMB organisations. In 2019, I expect
organisations of all sizes and industry
verticals to take steps to leverage the
benefits of multi-cloud architectures to drive
their Digital Transformation strategies.”
Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud were popular
themes among these IT experts. Neil Barton,
I EXPECT ORGANISATIONS OF ALL SIZES
AND INDUSTRY VERTICALS TO TAKE
STEPS TO LEVERAGE THE BENEFITS
OF MULTI-CLOUD ARCHITECTURES
TO DRIVE THEIR DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION STRATEGIES.
officially crown edge computing as the next
big thing. According to a study from IDC,
45% of all data created by IoT devices will
be stored, processed, analysed and acted
upon close to or at the edge of a network by
2020. In the process, edge computing will
take on workloads that struggle on hosted
cloud environments, passing the torch over
to HCI platforms.
“Multi-cloud is one of the most pervasive
trends in technology today,” said James
Henigan, Cloud and Managed Services
Director at Six Degrees. “Historically, this
started in some cases by accident rather
than through strategic direction and many
companies encountered the pain of dealing
with multiple suppliers, technologies,
commercial, contractual and support
44
INTELLIGENTCIO
CTO at WhereScape, commented: “Cloud-first
is the new norm. In 2019, large enterprises
will fully embrace this stance and will expend
considerable resources on creating and
maintaining hybrid cloud environments.
Alongside this, as businesses modernise their
data infrastructure, we’ll also see a move to
being automation-first – making automation
of data ingestion and processing a standard
part of any cloud migration effort. New
environments bring fresh challenges and
companies making this transition will not only
be evolving how they work to best leverage
the cloud, they will also be navigating working
within an infrastructure where their data
resides both on-premise and in different
cloud environments. Companies will need to
become more agile in how they execute a
multi-cloud strategy, so we will see increasing
rapid adoption and development of new
cloud environments, powered by automation.”
The CEO and Founder of Cloudhouse, Mat
Clothier, is also looking towards a year of
more cloud. He commented: “As more and
more enterprises move away from legacy
systems and towards a cloud-based future,
they will realise that migrating traditional
apps is challenging; there is a growing need
for the tools that offer portability which may
not be possible otherwise. In 2019, [we] will
inevitably see more enterprise workloads
move to Azure, AWS and Citrix, but what
remains to be seen is how many businesses
will realise the importance of tools that
manage the delivery of these applications
across a global network of data centres.”
Gregg Mearing, Head of Managed Services
at Node 4, had a slightly different prediction
for the cloud market next year. He said:
“The drive towards AI will become much
more of a focus for businesses next year,
particularly as companies begin to realise the
huge benefits in efficiency when it comes
to building and deploying applications
in the cloud. Take Microsoft for example;
increasingly, its customers are using Azure AI
to build apps that are smarter, more intuitive
and responsive in order to free up people
power and we will see more of this in 2019.
Businesses utilising the cloud will do well
to leverage the mantra that ‘knowledge is
power’ and applying predictive analytics to
data that helps drive AI can mean companies
can act on it and get ahead of the game.
James Henigan, Cloud and Managed
Services Director at Six Degrees
www.intelligentcio.com