Narrowing down the number of predictions, forecasts, and tendencies into five stats concerning cloud usage in 2018 is rather difficult, since most lists attempt to include something to satisfy everyone. Here we concentrate on only five important stats that show the developing landscape of the cloud.
1. Fewer Firms Are Using Hybrid Cloud Strategies
As per RightScale’s “State of the Cloud Report 2018”, the proportion of firms using hybrid cloud strategies decreased from 58% in January 2017 to 51% in January 2018. Even though the report noted a minor rise in firms accepting multi-cloud strategies (several private clouds or several public clouds), the first of our five stats concerning cloud usage in 2018 seems to confound predictors who forecasted a strong change to hybrid environments last year.
There might be different clarifications for this obvious contradiction. RightScale’s annual survey appoints less than one thousand firms – nearly half of whom have fewer than one thousand workers – indicating the report may not be completely illustrative of the “State of the Cloud”. It might also be the case the firms surveyed didn’t meet the conditions for when to use a hybrid strategy. However, it is an exciting statistic and one to observe as 2018 advances.
2. Containerization Increases, but Not as Quick as Serverless Calculating
Back in 2017, forecasts rattled around about the expected progress of containerization and serverless calculating (Function-as-a-Service/FaaS). Having been the buzzword for numerous years, most observers predict that containerization would carry on its remarkable expansion but that firms would adopt serverless calculating at a slower rate. Nevertheless, the second of our five stats concerning cloud usage in 2018 indicates the opposite is correct.
As per Cloudability’s “State of the Cloud Report 2018” – based on a tad more thorough survey than that carried out by RightScale – container adoption increased 246% among AWS users in 2017 Q4, while the adoption of serverless computing grew by 667% during the same period. It’s significant to note the relative beginning position of each facility before drawing too many conclusions regarding which to use, however, it is another statistic to observe as 2018 advances.
3. Fears about Workers Not Following Cloud Safety Policies
Back in 2015, Gartner’s “Top Tactical Positions for 2016 and Beyond” (PDF) expected 95% of cloud safety failures would be the firm´s responsibility. The expectation was backed by one of Gartner’s Safety Brokers creating a report in which it was asserted the broker had recognized 21,825 documents shared on public clouds with file names such as “budget”, “salary” and “confidential”. In what way Gartner equated that to 95%, we are not quite certain. Nonetheless … …
In 2018, the Oracle and KMPG “Cloud Threat Report 2018” found that, even though 97% of the 450 IT experts surveyed had applied cloud safety policies, 82% of those had fears about workers following the policies. In order to tackle this challenge, 84% of firms were applying policy-driven automation to assist protect their cloud settings, while 40% of firms were also hiring cloud safety architects to protect against sophisticated attackers.
4. The Connection between IT and LOB is Getting Closer
Also in 2015, a Harvard Business Assessment created for Oracle (PDF) found that less than 40% of IT divisions cooperated with Line of Business divisions when scheduling cloud applications. The connection between IT and LOB has improved considerably since; with IDG’s “State of the CIO 2018” report demonstrating cooperation between the two divisions has risen to 71% – mainly because of efforts by CIOs.
Executive leaders are also pushing invention, technology and digital change up the agenda as per the CIO 100 Report 2018, and now over 50% of CIOs have a direct reporting line to their company’s most senior people. One more development that has assisted close the connection between IT and LOB is the formation of “Engagement Leader” positions – usually filled by experts with solid analytical and communication skills that assist settle issues between divisions.
5. Cloud Expenses Remain the #1 Pain Point
It does not take an expert analyst to properly predict that spending in the cloud will rise in 2018, in spite of cloud expenses being the #1 pain point for firms surveyed by 451Research. Of the 534 firms surveyed, over half (53.2%) said the cost of operating in the cloud was of concern to them, whereas the next closest worry – safety problems – kept fewer than half of IT chiefs awake at night. The complete list of pain point options and their comparative concern ranking is:
- Cloud Expenses – 53.2%
- Safety Problems – 46.6%
- Reacting to Business Requirements – 43.3%
- Managing Legacy Structure – 29.2%
- Inadequate Staff – 27.2%
- New Applications and Projects – 26.0%
- Skills Deficiency – 24.0%
- Vendor Management – 9.7%
- Other – 2.6%