Here Are Three Cloud Trends to Watch in 2020

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A sea of change is taking place as enterprises look to compete more effectively in the digital age. Many are finding that their on-premises workloads and applications can no longer keep up, or allow the business to quickly launch new services as part of a data-driven approach. They are moving more of those applications and workloads to the cloud to take advantage of the flexibility and agility cloud services offer.

Gartner reports that by 2022, over 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, and Forrester expects that global public cloud spending is expected to rise to $300 billion. As more organizations shift to the cloud, it’s important to recognize the opportunities, but also the risks and challenges they may face on their cloud journey. Here are some trends to watch in 2020.

Protecting Cloud Workloads Against Breaches

Microsoft Azure and other hyperscale cloud platforms have advanced their security measures to the point where they surpass that of on-premises systems. But these workloads are still susceptible to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against the cloud provider’s data center, or other attacks. In some cases, simple human error can lead to data breaches— like when a major financial institution exposed information of more than 100 million customers and applicants in 2019.

Customer support, sales, marketing and other departments are all collecting customer data. No organization wants to be front page news for having customer data accessed on a cloud server. These issues are becoming even more urgent as states like California adopt their version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Just as important as being more data-driven is ensuring that data is safe and secure in the cloud.

In 2020, I think we’ll continue to see data breaches affecting mission-critical workloads – and resulting disruption to business—caused by preventable issues. Enterprises will begin to more fully appreciate the need for more automated testing and validation of cloud-based data to ensure data-centric applications run smoothly and are allowing users to make smart business decisions.

A Widening Data DevOps Gap

DevOps and cloud computing are joined at the hip and very complementary. As organizations are moving more workloads to the cloud, they’re also adopting more of a DevOps approach to process improvement which enables developers to deliver high-performing applications, faster.

So what is Data DevOps (also known as DataOps)? It essentially applies DevOps approaches to data, so that data teams can accelerate the delivery of data analytics in the same way traditional DevOps accelerates the delivery of software builds.

Getting good at DevOps anywhere in an organization is difficult, but especially so with data. Data is more static than application code, and data volumes are increasing exponentially, making it difficult for data teams to deliver data to the users and applications that need it.

Some organizations in 2020 will address these challenges by adopting tools that help streamline the management of data while also elevating the status of data within the business. These organizations will more effectively approach the entire customer experience from an agile, data DevOps perspective where they can keep their cloud-based applications running smoothly, keep their customers and users happy, and leave many competitors struggling with data DevOps behind.

The Year of Hybrid Cloud

For reasons stated earlier, making a headlong dash to the cloud to pursue your digital transformation without fully considering the potential consequences to your data may be unwise. That’s what will continue to make the hybrid cloud approach so attractive to enterprises in 2020 and beyond.

Hybrid cloud is an approach where enterprises rely on a mix of on-premises data centers, private cloud and public cloud services for their IT infrastructure. It essentially combines the best of both worlds— the flexibility and agility of public cloud with the control of on-prem.

MarketsandMarkets expects the hybrid cloud market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17% annually through 2023, though it noted the lack of awareness about privacy and security issues as being a barrier to adoption.

To my point earlier, I think 2020 will see significantly more awareness about the importance of data to power informed decisions and effectively monetize information. Enterprises will put more tools into the hands of data IT leaders and data professionals to manage business-critical data assets. This will help to lay the groundwork for enterprises to move and manage their cloud-based data workloads with more confidence and increase their hybrid cloud investments.

Public clouds are adding capabilities at a pace we wouldn’t have dreamed of a few years ago. I’m excited to see how each of these interconnected trends play out in 2020.

Bob Potter
Bob Potter is the CEO of SentryOne, bringing to the role nearly 30 years of experience scaling tech firms and leading business intelligence, analytics and data management software companies. Prior to SentryOne, Bob was on the operating team of Alpine Investors, where he acquired and managed small SaaS companies. As an expert in database management and software, Bob brings unique perspectives to leadership and building high-performing teams. Bob is a graduate of Providence College and resides in the Boston area.

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