As we enter 2021, the world continues to be unstable (thanks, 2020!). Many things in the world changed by COVID-19. The move we all made to the digital world took on full speed; it looks like the digital transformation is at its peak. Cloud adaptation started before 2020, but there’s no doubt COVID-19 gave it a push. 94% of enterprises already use the cloud, 66% of enterprises have a central cloud team or center of excellence when 21% plan on having one in the near future.
Interestingly enough, IT departments’ main responsibilities are to optimize cloud costs (for 68% of enterprises), comprehend which applications should run on which cloud (for 62%), and to set up policies for cloud use (for 59%).
Cloud management is shifting to new directions after learning what are the pitfalls. 3 important transformations will be at the center of cloud management in 2021.
1. The rise of the CloudOps into the deployment cycle
DevOps was created to help move the software release cycle faster. Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) followed suit. DevOps saw the code move down the pipeline from building the code, testing it, releasing it, and then to operations. That made it possible for a faster release cycle. But ops is not just CI/CD anymore. Ops need to understand containers, how to monitor the resources, and distribute them better. The realization that CloudOps is needed is starting to sink in, and we’ll see it rise and bloom in 2021.
2. No control over multi-services must change
Another thing we’ll see is more developers getting into the deployment and being involved hands-on in the cloud environment – known as GitOps.
But letting developers access the cloud can backfire. What might seem like a small and maybe insignificant change to that developer, might lead to security breaches. Not enough proficiency in cloud security and compliance leads to human mistakes.
The growing move to the cloud and the need for cloud control made it necessary for a cloud architect function. But not all companies are aware of this. We still see that cloud responsibility is of different functions in the organization. It could be the CTO, VP R&D, or Ops. However, the move to the cloud is at a point where there are many tools and services for the infrastructure with no way to control them. The cloud owner spends time trying to make sense of all the services and learning how to improve them. The need for observability, compliance, control, and optimization will be the focus in 2021.
But why?
Moving to serverless architecture will need more observability into the system. The migration to serverless architecture means that instead of using a monolith application there are several smaller units known as microservices. This means there are separate services with logic and databases of their own that you need to manage, control, and profession in.
The different services communicate with each other and there’s a need to trace the network between them.
The ability to understand how my code works becomes a challenge. I have to rely on what I built behind the scene and debugging isn’t an easy option as it was when it was a monolith.
We can conclude that monitoring isn’t simple even when everything runs smoothly and especially when things don’t. For example, imagine you see your cost rising significantly but you don’t know why. Nobody changed anything as far as you know. You’ll have to go over each service and try to make sense of how each service affects the other. Observability is a key factor in troubleshooting and finding root causes. It’s hard to keep track of all the services when they are separate units unless you have one platform that shows you all your cloud management services in one place.
3. Rein in cloud waste
Did you know that 30% of the cloud is waste? Yet companies still plan to spend more on the cloud in 2021. Not so surprising when you think about it. Companies want to give their clients the best possible service but they don’t even try to understand why 30% of their cloud is waste. That’s going to change in 2021.
Why is there so much cloud waste?
The answer is simple then you might think – optimization. With plenty of managed services for cloud computing, storage, networking, database, analytics, application services, deployment, management, mobile, developer tools, and tools for the Internet of Things. and different people having access to the cloud, it’s hard to keep track. That’s going to change in 2021, many organizations will find they need one tool to control all their cloud services and enable them to optimize the cloud cost and functionality. You can gain observability and control over your cloud here.
Conclusion
Thanks to the push 2020 gave to cloud usage, cloud management is going to transform in 2021. There’s going to be a rise of DevOps in the deployment cycle. Taking back control over multi-cloud services is going to be a must, along with reining in cloud waste. While there are many solutions for specific issues, there’s only one solution to full observability and control. Learn more about it here.
