DEVOPSdigest

DEVOPSdigest asked DevOps experts — analysts and consultants, users and the top vendors — for their predictions on how DevOps and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2019. Part 9, the final installment, covers microservices, containers and APIs.

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 1

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 2

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 3

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 4

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 5

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 6

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 7

Start with 2019 DevOps Predictions - Part 8

GROWTH OF FUNCTION-AS-A-SERVICE (FAAS)

Serverless processing of large data sets will move more workloads away from big data to functions orchestrated at scale with Kubernetes-like tools. This means that more organizations will be able to process big data by utilizing Function-as-as-a-Service (FaaS) solutions for better speed and affordability.
Madhukar Kumar
VP of Product Marketing, Redis Labs(link is external)

STANDARDIZATION OF FAAS

We've seen the creation of many Kubernetes-based Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) platforms this year. Next year, we can expect to see some efforts to standardize the FaaS programming model on top of Kubernetes. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) or the Eclipse Foundation may have some projects focused on this subject. This standardization will lead to platform consolidation in the long run.
Edson Yanaga
Director, Developer Experience, Red Hat(link is external)

Mesh App and Services Architectures (MASA) Gains Popularity

Microservices architectures will further evolve. For instance, as specific services increasingly require the ability to work together with monolithic applications, Mesh App and Services Architectures (MASA) are gaining in popularity. This approach uses data services for listening to events and reacting to them in real time.
Madhukar Kumar
VP of Product Marketing, Redis Labs(link is external)

BUSINESSES EMBRACE MULTI-MODEL

While microservices aren't necessarily a new concept, the way businesses approach them in terms of database infrastructure and technology is. 2018 saw developers coding in a microservices environment preferential to work in NoSQL, but in 2019, businesses will embrace a multi-model approach. This will address the growing need for speed and agility when it comes to application development.
Oren Eini
CEO and Founder, Hibernating Rhinos(link is external)

Servers and systems replaced by containers, microservices and serverless

Application development teams now have sufficient real experience with containers, microservices and serverless computing to allow them to completely refactor applications. This will lead to much more agility, reduced costs, and paying only for computing resources consumed. Microservices can be quickly composed and adapted to support new needs. However, the production environment contains many more pieces than with legacy monolithic applications. In addition to the increased number of application components, many of them are only running for an instant, which makes application monitoring and troubleshooting significantly more difficult — this difficulty will be overcome by DevOps teams integrating leading-edge application performance monitoring tools into these next generation applications.
John Gray
CTO, Infiniti, InterVision(link is external)

RUNNING CONTAINERS AT SCALE PRESENTS CHALLENGE

In 2019, running stateful containers at a scale will be the biggest challenge in the evolution of production-ready cloud-native architectures. Current storage solutions cater to virtualization vendor platforms but aren't a great fit for container technology. In 2019, the problem to solve for is finding one storage solution to support these completely independent virtualization mechanisms so that they can co-exist.
Gaurav Yadav
Founding Engineer/Product Manager, Hedvig(link is external)

API-FIRST APPLICATION INTEGRATION

API-First Thinking Will Help Eradicate Performance Woes: Most organizations operate in an IT environment that involves integrating together a host of apps, rather than leveraging one, single platform, to manage the entire business. In order to avoid performance woes of out-of-the-box integrations platforms we've seen flood the market in 2018, 2019 will focus on API-first application integrations, which allow all business systems to better communicate with one another. By refocusing on API-first philosophies, IT teams will gain better visibility, reduce duplication of efforts, and will limit the impact of "shadow IT."
Peter Fry
VP of Engineering, Platform & Security, Mavenlink(link is external)

MICROSERVICES DRIVE API USE

Microservices-oriented architectures will transform the API (application program interface) economy. As companies increasingly move from monolithic to loosely-coupled/microservices oriented architecture, APIs will play a massive role, as development teams can easily integrate and prototype functionality and features in their products. They will continue to provide a flexible and reliable way to improve applications with powerful 3rd party services or home-grown services.
Stephen Blum
CTO and Co-Founder, PubNub(link is external)

API MANAGEMENT ACQUISITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS

We are witnessing an industry shift in which separate markets for API management solutions and integration solutions are converging – and this is setting off a string of acquisitions on both sides of the fence. I believe we will see more API management vendors and pure-play integration vendors merge or get acquired – or at the very least create partnerships that ensure all their customers have access to API management solutions and integration solutions that are somehow combined together.
The fundamental driver behind this trend is that APIs are there to deliver data and that data sits in a myriad of systems. Connectivity solutions need to have API lifecycle and enterprise integration working seamlessly together in a single platform. The market as a whole is increasingly recognizing this, and I think we will see more vendors who stayed in either the API management or integration market look for partners or acquisitions on the other side. It will be interesting what we end up with as this trend continues to accelerate.
Simon Peel
Chief Strategy Officer, Jitterbit(link is external)

API AUTOMATES THE CLOUD

As many businesses have traveled the pathway to the cloud, the next evolution is the effective nature of cloud attributes. Today, many businesses have a focus on automation within the cloud. While automating the infrastructure and components are critical, the next logical step is automating business processes, as they correlate to the effective use of the infrastructure. Many automation tools exist, however lack of common application program interfaces (APIs) prevent uniform context relevant within the infrastructure. 2019 may see the evolution of a common framework and API, which can be leveraged within a multi-cloud environment. Automating to solve a business challenge and metric to give the clear competitive advantage is what will change the relevance of cloud for many companies.
Sean McGrath
VP, DXS Architect, InterVision(link is external)

Check back for 2019 DevSecOps predictions.