DEVOPSdigest

As part of the 2022 DevOps Predictions list, DEVOPSdigest asked industry experts — from analysts and consultants to users and the top vendors — how they think cloud will evolve and impact DevOps in 2022.

The Final Deathblow for On-Prem

The shift to hybrid on-premises and cloud infrastructures has been well documented, and added up to big business. Yet calling the model most organizations have adopted today "hybrid" is a bit misleading. In fact, the relevancy of on-prem has diminished so much that a "hybrid infrastructure" is only relevant to on-prem in the same way a physical ATM is to Venmo. ATMs still exist, but cash transactions have largely been replaced by digital Venmo or credit card transactions. When we view it this way, we can call for 2022 to be the final deathblow for on-prem as viewed as core infrastructure or IT strategy. Put it this way — in 2022, no one is ever going to install an application on-prem instead of the cloud.
Tej Redkar
Chief Product Officer, LogicMonitor(link is external)

On-prem is not going away anytime soon

The fact is that enterprises have invested so heavily in the cloud in recent years that the strategies have not always kept up with the investments. That means on-prem systems may still be the best place to keep certain data until a solid framework for handling such data securely and efficiently in the cloud takes shape. Furthermore, as organizations modernize their environments and implement more coherent, long-term strategies, they will likely see cases where on-prem is still the best choice for some applications and data. This is especially true for highly-sensitive or highly-regulated data sets, or situations where keeping the apps and data on-prem better supports integration, performance, reliability and security. Whether the strategy requires data to be temporarily or permanently kept away from the cloud, organizations will increasingly realize the value of retaining a certain degree of on-prem capacity and the cyber assets.
Keith Neilson
Technical Evangelist, CloudSphere(link is external)

Cloud migrations will increase

Companies already in the cloud will continue to evolve and rationalize their multi-cloud strategies for any number of reasons that may include pricing, availability, license bundling and other factors. Because of this, we will see more cloud-first enterprises moving resources from one cloud to another. So, while such an enterprise may have a steady percentage of its assets in the cloud over time, those assets will be spread across a more diverse third party landscape of multiple cloud providers. The cyber asset management mandate in this scenario will be to facilitate smooth and secure operations over this range of multiple cloud vendors — so the enterprise can reduce risk exposure from having a single cloud vendor, without introducing new risks from misaligned multi-cloud assets.
Keith Neilson
Technical Evangelist, CloudSphere(link is external)

MULTI-CLOUD BECOMES NEW NORMAL

The remote restructuring of the workplace will push organizations to accelerate their cloud migrations, and in particular, their shift to the multi-cloud, which will be the new normal for enterprises in 2022. I think businesses will increasingly separate and distribute their data flows and critical functions across multiple clouds from different service providers, giving them more agility and flexibility for better DevOps environments. Of course, this means IT teams will have a bigger challenge on their hands to manage these multi-cloud workloads, especially since they'll want to ensure their ironclad security. With this in mind, we'll see organizations allocating more resources not only to migration and management but protection, too.
Faiz Khan
CEO, Wanclouds(link is external)

KUBERNETES DRIVES MULTI-CLOUD

Multicloud will not just be what people are talking about, but what they're doing now. While organizations have been deploying applications across multiple cloud providers and in hybrid clouds across public and private clouds for a while now, what's different with Kubernetes is it enables enterprises to define the cloud on their terms as a collection of distributed resources across data centers and providers. Kubernetes, allows them to build end-to-end software defined IT platforms, and can be deployed on any provider or any infrastructure.
Kirby Wadsworth
CMO, ionir(link is external)

SAAS ADDRESSES DELIVERY VIA MULTI-CLOUD

The 2010s saw increasing adoption of cloud based applications. Often the adoption of cloud technology focused on lift and shift of existing applications to new hosting/delivery models. While this increased the ability of organizations to run and transform, it doesn't necessarily deliver the long term financial, process and architecture goals demanded by increasingly frugal CFOs. However, shifting an enterprise architecture to cloud native overnight simply doesn't happen. As we head towards the mid-2020s, progressive organizations are leaning towards a new way of thinking. The notion of simply maintaining existing on-prem delivery mechanisms or shifting them en-mass to the cloud is shifting to a standard approach to Cloud Native Platforms, with on premises software now the outlier for any product delivery model. Vendor provided SaaS models are maturing to address delivery via multi cloud ecosystems and to support full hybrid delivery models. There remain elements of an organization that must remain in private cloud systems — but that does not preclude them from inclusion in modernization programs.
Julian Fish
Director of Product Management, Micro Focus(link is external)

Portability still an issue

Organizations are still unable to take full advantage of hybrid cloud (and multi-cloud) because of the challenges of portability. Architecting your technology stack is more important than ever; otherwise, organizations can create silos where their applications and data are living in two completely separate environments. Vendors often tout interoperability, but to achieve true interoperability requires strategic architecting and maintenance. Whether organizations lock into one vendor for their public and private cloud needs or choose a multi-cloud strategy, companies need to invest time and resources to ensure their technology environment gains the full advantages of hybrid cloud. Portability has been and remains a key element to hybrid cloud ROI.
Jesse Stockall
Chief Architect, Cloud Management, Snow Software(link is external)

NEGATIVE ROI FROM MULTI-CLOUD

Companies will increasingly seek to invest in multi-cloud approaches, but many of these projects will not bear fruit and/or burn a great deal of cash in order to achieve results, because the investments are being made for the wrong reasons (attempting to avoid vendor lock-in rather than multi-cloud for best of breed features that a specific cloud provider has versus another). I forecast a negative ROI on many of these projects i.e. the benefit gained by avoiding an incumbent cloud provider like AWS versus the expenditure (both capex and opex) on creating multi-cloud primitives.
Julian Dunn
Director of Product Marketing, PagerDuty(link is external)

CLOUD COST MANAGEMENT

The pandemic pressured organizations to modernize and accelerate digital transformation efforts, resulting in increased investments in cloud computing. However, every organization has unique needs and business objectives — and many have learned the cloud isn't the be-all and end-all to an organization's success. According to third-party data, in 2020, organizations wasted US $17.6 billion on idle cloud resources and cloud overspending. In 2022, organizations will evaluate the implications of their cloud investments and will need to revisit best practices for engaging with the cloud. One trend we expect to see is businesses putting in place a team to manage cloud costs. This may be in the form of an individual from the IT/cloud/DevOps team, and in some cases, a dedicated team will be formed to focus on it. When the team or individual is put in place will be determined by the velocity of cloud initiatives, architectures, and overall budget for the project.
Thomas LaRock
Head Geek, SolarWinds(link is external)

Go to: 2022 DevOps Predictions for Cloud - Part 2