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On Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT/7 p.m. GMT, @eWEEKNews will host its 89th monthly #eWEEKChat. The topic will be “Next-Gen Cloud Services and Delivery,” and it will be moderated by eWEEK Editor Chris Preimesberger.
Some quick facts:
Topic: #eWEEKchat, Aug. 11: “Next-Gen Cloud Services and Delivery”
Date/time: Tuesday, Aug. 11, 11 a.m. PDT / 2 p.m. EDT / 7 p.m. GMT
Participation: You can use #eWEEKchat to follow/participate via Twitter itself, but it’s easier and more efficient to use the real-time chat room link at CrowdChat. Instructions are on that page; log in at the top right, use your Twitter handle to register, and the chat begins promptly at 11 a.m. PT. The page will come alive at that time with the real-time discussion. You can join in or simply watch the discussion as it is created. Special thanks to John Furrier of SiliconAngle.com for developing the CrowdChat app.
Our in-chat experts this month are: Larry Lunetta, VP of WLAN and security solutions marketing, Aruba; Bruce Kornfeld, CMO, StorMagic; Eric Han, VP of Product Management, NetApp; Tony Cai, Partner Sales Executive, Nerdio; Phil Straw, CEO, SoftIron; Sean Leach, Products & Technology, Fastly; Marge Breya, CMO, 8×8. Check back for late additions.
Chat room real-time link: Use https://www.crowdchat.net/eweekchat. Sign in with your Twitter handle and use #eWEEKchat for the identifier.
‘Next-Gen Cloud Services and Delivery’: What exactly are the trends?
It’s almost impossible to find an organization that doesn’t rely at least partially on cloud services. Whether it’s application software, operating systems, databases, web servers, IP addresses or virtual local area networks – the cloud seems to offer it all.
Ten years ago, this wasn’t the case–in fact, a majority of businesses still didn’t trust using the cloud to handle their crown jewels in some unseen server, network and storage somewhere in the world. But that is all history by now; cloud services have proven their performance, security and economic values, and there is no turning back.
Cloud initiatives are expected to account for a whopping 75% of all IT spending this year, according to Gartner Research. As many as 80% of organizations are expected to migrate their business functionality to the cloud by 2025, whether it’s SaaS, hosting or colocation. In 2019, public cloud adoption grew to 93%, and IaaS–infrastructure-as-a-service–is expected to reach $72.4 billion worldwide by the end of 2020.
More and more next-gen cloud apps are using built-in intelligence to become more agile and predictive, in order to help anticipate issues before they come to the surface for administrators. This requires higher bandwidth in networks, heavier applications and more storage space where the apps and data reside.
Global cloud adoption trends
- 84% of enterprises currently run on a multi-cloud strategy (metric from RightScale)
- More than 75% of enterprises use pubic cloud services of some sort
- Serverless computing had a 23% adoption rate in 2019, making it the fastest growing extended cloud service. [Definition: Serverless computing is a method of providing backend services on an as-used basis. Servers are still used, but a company that gets backend services from a serverless vendor is charged based on usage, not a fixed amount of bandwidth or number of servers.]
More and more enterprises are moving toward remote infrastructure–especially during the current global pandemic–indicating that a cloud-powered future is going to take root and become standard. Managing cloud adoption is one of the enterprise’s top priorities for 2020, and it is expected to maintain its status as a priority in the next few years. A boom of new cloud services is, therefore, imminent. Most of these new apps will include some sort of automation and/or artificial intelligence as a component.
Edge computing grows as a trend
We cannot talk about next-gen cloud services and delivery without highlighting the rise of edge computing–computing done on a localized basis that serves as an extension to cloud services. Any connected laptop, smartphone, tablet, desktop workstation or smartwatch is an edge-computing device; at times they are connected to the cloud, at other times they are connected to local WiFi or another type of network.
As computing continues to expand its borders and include all the data center, cloud, edge computing and standalone devices in the world, it’s becoming apparent that for everything to be functional, it all will need to be connected to one main network: the internet.
New cloud service delivery requirements
Organizations that continue to use traditional data center management solutions are sometimes struggling with inefficiencies due to limitations in defining, building, consuming and administering ever-more-complicated services. Further, these solutions cannot incorporate automation capabilities, such as autoscaling, self-diagnosis, and automated creation or destruction of environments based on the business need.
How can companies determine the right balance between the need for speed and the necessity to stay up-to-date in cloud technologies, when business context changes every day? The answer lies in building agility and assurance across cloud operations from Day 1 and not as an afterthought.
The fact is that as the nature of business changes, so does the complexity of a managed service model. As a result, today’s enterprises are in search of managed service providers (MSPs) who can offer business service assurance while installing agility as the new normal.
When established players, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), launch innovative services, organizations need to ensure that their chosen MSPs have the expertise and resources to on board new services cost-effectively. There are key differentiators between traditional, cloud-native managed services, the benefits gained by choosing the right MSP partner.
Seed questions
Here are examples of seed questions we’ll pose to our audience on Aug. 11:
- What are some new approaches vendors are using to ensure safe delivery of cloud services?
- Is Oracle on to something with its new virtual private cloud environment? This means that Oracle will manage all of its cloud services–including its foundational Autonomous Exadata Database–behind a company’s private firewall, as if it were a conventional on-premises system.
- How can companies determine the right balance between the need for speed and the necessity to stay up-to-date in cloud technologies, when business context changes every day?
- What advantages does edge computing have that separate it from conventional cloud apps?
- Who are some of the young cloud app delivery “stars” of the cloud application delivery sector and what innovation do they bring to the table?
Join us Aug. 11 at 11 a.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. GMT for an hour. Chances are good that you’ll learn something valuable.
#eWEEKchat Tentative Schedule for 2020*
xJan. 8: Trends in New-Gen Data Security
xFeb. 12: Batch Goes Out the Window: The Dawn of Data Orchestration
xMarch 11: New Trends and Products in New-Gen Health-Care IT
xApril 8: Trends in Collaboration Tools
xMay 12: Trends in New-Gen Mobile Apps, Devices
xJune 9: Data Storage, Protection in a Hypersensitive Era
xJuly 14: Next-Gen Networking
Aug. 11: Next-Gen Cloud Services and Delivery
Sept. 8: (tentative): DevSecOps: Confidential Computing, Open Source Security and Risk Assessment
Oct. 13: DataOps: The Data Management Platform of the Future?
Nov. 10: Hot New Tech for 2021
Dec. 8: Predictions and Wild Guesses for IT in 2021
*all topics subjects to change
x=completed