Why Multi‑Cloud Is the 2019 Must‑Have Strategy for IT Leaders

Relevant agencies predict that multi‑cloud will become a trend in 2019, but many may underestimate it; adopting multi‑cloud is becoming the preferred strategy for most IT leaders, and when people talk about “cloud computing” they are essentially referring to “multi‑cloud”. “Multi‑cloud is already a reality,” says Amir Jerbi, CTO and co‑founder of Aqua Security. This is why multi‑cloud and hybrid cloud play a key role in the trends forecast by Jerbi and other cloud experts, as they become a new reality with many future changes.

Below are the key cloud‑computing issues that IT leaders say should be focused on in the coming year:

1. Multi‑Cloud Approach Has Matured

If 2018 was the year multi‑cloud became mainstream, 2019 will be the year the multi‑cloud strategy matures.

“In fact, every large enterprise runs applications on multiple cloud platforms,” Jerbi says. “The challenge in 2019 is to treat it as a flexible, planned model rather than a collection of ad‑hoc initiatives.”

Using multiple cloud services from several providers is the most direct definition of multi‑cloud, meaning many organizations will adopt a “multi‑cloud” strategy. As the strategy becomes more important, especially for multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud infrastructures, they need higher‑level planning to ensure better performance, reliability, budget control, and to address key IT concerns.

Bhanu Singh, VP of Engineering at OpsRamp, adds: “As more enterprises move workloads to the cloud, they look for ways to reduce cost and improve availability and performance. The rise of AIOps and hybrid‑cloud management will drive the optimization of multi‑cloud management and spending. Cloud adoption is now broader, making it the right time to optimize.”

2. More Organizations Will Refactor On‑Premises Applications for the Cloud

While leading enterprises adopt advanced multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud environments, many will still launch new applications.

Mike Kail, CTO of Everest, says, “Many enterprises are still defining a single public‑cloud strategy and figuring out how to refactor and move workloads before they can correctly build a multi‑cloud.”

Although cloud‑native development is becoming the norm, more companies are expected to refactor existing on‑premises applications and shift those workloads to cloud environments.

Cloud expert Ed Featherston notes, “In 2019, organizations will move from ‘lift‑and‑shift’ to refactoring or rebuilding applications to take advantage of native cloud services.” This is one of several catalysts driving interest and adoption of containers, orchestration, and other emerging technologies.

“Generally, Kubernetes and container orchestration will be a key component of moving workloads from on‑premises to the cloud,” Kail adds. “At the same time, serverless/FaaS adoption will increase, as it is a natural partner of cloud‑native architectures.”

3. Kubernetes Tames Complexity

Even with (or perhaps without) intelligent, flexible planning, the spread and maturation of multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud environments increase complexity, not to mention the multitude of options available to enterprise CIOs.

“SaaS and PaaS offerings will continue to grow at astonishing speed, making it hard even for the most agile organizations to keep up with the pace of new features and how to apply them,” Featherston says. “Multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud adoption will become standard. Automation and DevOps processes are essential for successfully adapting to the changing environment.”

Choosing multi‑cloud is wise, but for organizations lacking planning, visibility, and oversight it can have adverse effects: “multi‑cloud” may become a patchwork of cloud services.

“As the number of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS products rises, ‘shadow cloud’ deployments will increase, because developers still retain purchasing and decision‑making authority within enterprises,” Kail explains. “At the same time, more regulations such as GDPR introduce data‑privacy and security challenges, making compliance harder.”

The complexity of the new world can be controlled, which is why platforms like Kubernetes are gaining popularity.

“Cloud‑native technologies like containers help achieve true multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud deployments,” Jerbi says.

Remember that Kubernetes can run on laptops, virtual machines, bare‑metal servers, and public or private clouds. Gordon Haff of Red Hat notes, “Users can group hosts running Linux containers into clusters, and Kubernetes helps manage those clusters efficiently across public, private, and hybrid clouds.”

4. More Organizations Must Bridge the Cloud Skills Gap

The “skills gap” is a known challenge for organizations, especially amid fierce talent competition in the broad range of cloud roles.

“As digital transformation accelerates, organizations seek DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering, and cloud monitoring/management skills, but struggle to find or acquire talent,” Singh says.

OpsRamp’s recent survey found 60% of IT professionals say most of their applications are built or run in hybrid‑cloud architectures. However, 90% of respondents say the skills gap remains large, and only about one‑third consider demand for cloud‑native skills to exceed the current supply.

Singh believes IT leaders will become more proactive in 2019, with some enterprises turning to internal retraining or managed‑service providers to fill the gap.

5. Cloud Data Management Becomes a Hot Topic

As cloud computing evolves, demand for cloud data management is rising. Singh predicts that over the next year, cloud data management will attract increasing attention within the broader cloud‑management field, largely because multi‑cloud and hybrid‑cloud environments require more planning and optimization.

“Data availability and quality are fundamental drivers of effective optimization, so data management in the cloud will become a major trend,” Singh says. “Aggregating and analyzing data across multi‑cloud environments will provide deeper insights into enterprise IaaS, and the market for cloud‑management data tools is also growing.”