Enterprises will move beyond cheap fixes and instead seek innovative app services in order to modernize their businesses in 2019, according to Forrester’s “Predictions 2019: Cloud Computing” report.
Forrester believes that 2019 is the year that the cloud comes to the forefront for enterprises. Many companies look set to decide that now is the time to make the move from legacy software to cloud.
Cloud giants will grow
With this in mind, Forrester believes that the largest public cloud providers, such as Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle, will continue to grow. The increased focus on app modernization will play a part in that, along with international growth for these companies. Europe in particular looks to be a region for further expansion.
Containerization to continue
Containerization will also continue to be the way forward for core enterprise apps and innovation within the industry – a trend that saw Kubernetes (K8s) thrive in 2018. This year will see a focus on making these K8s easier to deploy, secure, monitor, scale, and upgrade. Forrester expects cloud security vendors to help this trend continue by encouraging containers and the development of security features.
Private cloud choices
Migration will continue in private cloud too, with many choosing a private server due to compliance regulations regarding security. Forrester predicts that enterprises will need to decide among three key strategies for adopting a private cloud: building it themselves with developer-focused tools, getting someone else to build it for them with software stacks, or building it themselves with OpenStack. While the first is the traditional route, it is also expensive and complex, meaning companies may decide to go down one of the other two routes. Whatever the choice, integration of the company’s legacy systems with the cloud is still a necessity.
Day 1 vs. day 2
Decisions about PaaS deployment will also by influenced by a growing concern for quality in 2019, according to Forrester. The view from enterprises will be that day 1 and day 2 experiences are equally important. This means that enterprises will focus both on deployment and how easy ongoing governance and operations are. As a result, DevOps will be more important than ever in ensuring this is the case.
SaaS-based industry ecosystems to appear
Finally, along with the growth of the large public cloud providers, it is predicted that SaaS-based industry ecosystems will appear. This follows the emergence of industry-specific SaaS platforms and mergers in 2018. While this might not affect enterprises directly, it is something to keep an eye on. A merger and the development of an ecosystem could be a chance for innovation in 2020.
These predictions indicate that change is ahead, and that those that aren’t ready to embrace innovation will be left behind. Legacy systems often encapsulate the point in time that an enterprise adopted them – 2019 is expected to be the year that cloud makes this no longer the case.
To find the full report from Forrester, follow this link.
