Few IT solutions have generated as much buzz as the cloud in recent years. Vendors have introduced all kinds of cloud-based services, allowing businesses to receive everything from contact center capabilities to cybersecurity solutions via this convenient, flexible and scalable technology.
Looking into 2020 and beyond, the future still appears cloudy. As digital transformation becomes increasingly important for businesses striving to keep up with consumers’ changing expectations, essentially everyone has embraced the cloud in one form or another: The RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera found 94 percent of respondents use the cloud, with 91 percent reporting public cloud adoption and 72 percent leveraging private cloud technology.
If you’re wondering what the coming year holds for this segment of the tech world, here are some notable cloud computing trends to watch in 2020.
1. Businesses increasingly favor a multi-cloud strategy.
As companies move more workloads to the cloud, we’ve seen the “one-cloud-fits-all” philosophy start to die out, IBM noted in a blog entry last year. Instead, many organizations now leverage multi-cloud (more than one cloud) and hybrid cloud (both public and private cloud) strategies.
In 2019, RightScale found survey respondents used about five clouds on average, and 84 percent of enterprises reported using a multi-cloud approach. There are various reasons why hybrid and multi-cloud strategies make sense, from accommodating the distinct needs and risk levels of different workloads to avoiding “vendor lock-in.” The multi-cloud option will likely continue to dominate this year, according to the CIO Dive article “5 cloud trends for 2020.”
For more information on this trend, take a look at our previous post “Why Businesses Have Turned to a Multi-Cloud Approach.”
2. Cloud security has become a major area of concern.
Last year, the Capital One breach understandably caused concern surrounding cloud security to spike. That incident involved personal information from about 106 million Capital One customers and card applicants – data that was stored via Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to The Wall Street Journal article “Capital One Breach Casts Shadow Over Cloud Security.”
Given how rapidly new threats emerge, it’s imperative that any business leveraging cloud-based solutions keeps security in mind when selecting vendors. Even though storing your data in the cloud is relatively safe, the 2019 Cloud Security Report from (ISC)2 found that 93 percent of cybersecurity professionals have at least a moderate level of concern about public cloud security. Furthermore, 28 percent of organizations surveyed reported experiencing a cloud security incident in the previous year.
Ultimately, you can’t be too careful. For more details about selecting a secure cloud provider, read our blog entry “How Secure is the Cloud? What You Should Know to Keep Your Data Safe.”
3. Cloud cost management is still a struggle.
Organizations of all sizes grapple with cloud costs, with 84 percent of enterprises and 69 percent of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) identifying it as a challenge, according to RightScale. As leveraging multiple clouds has become common, companies must now figure out how to keep track of and optimize costs across various vendors and solutions. Businesses anticipated spending 24 percent more on public cloud in 2019 than in 2018, RightScale reported. That number will likely continue climbing in 2020.
Fortunately, there are steps you can take – such as monitoring spending levels and pinpointing areas of waste – to get a better handle on cloud expenditures. For more information, please read our previous blog entry “4 Tips for Better Cloud Cost Management.”
If you have questions or concerns about any aspect of cloud computing, we have a team of cloud consultants on staff who would be happy to assist you. We work with all kinds of solutions offered by vendors in our extensive partner network, which gives us the knowledge needed to offer objective side-by-side comparisons of different products to our clients. Connect with our cloud experts today by calling 877-599-3999 or emailing sales@stratospherenetworks.com.
