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Discussions about the future of cloud implementation always involve the building and operating of DevOps platforms in cloud-native environments, which is also known as CloudOps. However, the proper know-how to fully grasp the long-term impact, challenges, and solutions of this technology are quite limited in the software industry.
As enterprises are increasingly deploying more applications and data stores to the cloud, they are finding out that there are still many gaps in their understanding of CloudOps. Cloud deployments are increasingly becoming complex, especially when it comes to the two major paradigms of net-new cloud-native applications and lift-and-shift applications.
Software industry enterprises have their ears to the ground to know what 2022 may look like for CloudOps implementation. In this article, we make an attempt to explore what challenges these enterprises may face in 2022 and what possible solutions they can opt for.
The Major Future Directions For CloudOps
Enterprises adopting CloudOps must prepare their infrastructure to optimize applications running on the cloud. They must scale up to optimize the efficiency and reliability of their adopted cloud technologies. In the years to come, most of these enterprises will have to come to terms with the increasing complexity of CloudOps. They must contend with the following directions in which this technology might go:
1)Increasing Complexity
In the domain of cloud computing, an increase in complexity tends to slow or completely halt cloud-based workload deployments and operations. This is referred to as a complexity wall, which several enterprises are bound to hit in 2022. This is what several years of rapid movement to public cloud providers will be building up to. The movement to the cloud has been taking place without much consideration for common services such as security and monitoring systems.
At the time of initial cloud adoption, organizations assumed that whatever technologies and dependencies they were adopting would remain bleeding-edge for at least a decade. However, they are at a point now wherein any number of new skills and tooling may not prepare them for the complexity wall of 2022. According to Aptum's survey report, about 62% of cloud operators cited growing technical complexity as a roadblock for carrying out successful digital transformation.
2)Insufficient Planning
Before an organization migrates its operations to the cloud, it must take due diligence in the planning process. Over the last decade, pioneering enterprises have made the move to the cloud without the faintest idea as to how they will operate and handle their data once fully migrated. A lack of prior planning translates to a lack of on-the-job coordination.
In 2022, more organizations would have to simply add planning to the process of moving to or building on the cloud. They will need to have a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in place before they initiate their migration strategies. Net-new and migrated systems must be created with the end goal of resulting in better operations. An option they can go for is creating management APIs containing self-reporting data from cloud-based systems.
3) Key Trends Affecting The Future Of CloudOps
Leading enterprise pioneers have been looking into expanding their cloud operations expertise for CloudOps-related tools. Tools such as cloud management and monitoring, AI operations (AIOps), financial operations (FinOps) as well as related APIs and resource governance are gaining growing prominence. Amidst these growing trends, a number of key trends are coming into focus right now that are going to affect the future CloudOps. These are:
- Lack of skills: There is a lack of sufficient know-how when it comes to technologies and CloudOps tools. Even basic operations such as system backups, runtime monitoring, and restarting cloud-based systems are not matched by the workforce in terms of skills.
- Budget restrictions: While most of the funding is going into the actual migration to the cloud, supporting training requirements and technology spending is not up to the mark.
- Atypical platforms: There have been constant innovations towards platforms being run in cloud-native environments. High-performance computing and quantum systems are examples of these emerging platforms.
- Utility consumption models: On-premises data centers will become a thing of the past, as virtual machines become increasingly popular. Enterprises will pay for hardware and software as services on a pay-per-use basis.
Possible Solutions For Future Challenges
The immediate future landscape of CloudOps is easy to predict with the emerging changes in this domain that have been seen over the past decade or so. Both as a concept and a set of technological tools, CloudOps has presented organizations with challenges, forcing them to innovate and bring about the necessary changes to keep up. Here are a few solutions to some of the broader challenges:
1)Dealing with operational complexity: Heterogeneous technology stacks involved in CloudOps often leave IT teams looking for options for the abstraction and automation of cloud adoption. Some of the most time-tested tools in the marketplace for reducing operational complexity include cloud management platforms and cloud service brokers. Opting for the right option is always based on how it will elevate an enterprise's ease of migration.
2)The use of AI and automation: There aren't a whole lot of tools out there that can provide the scale of automation required by CloudOps in the future. Self-healing of cloud-native environments and databases will be the most popular application of AI in the near future. Diagnosing root causes of database failures as well as restarting databases is another important application that AI will see.
3)Improving upon CloudOps skills: While there are plenty of Cloud specialists in the market who can take care of most aspects of cloud migration, the future of CloudOps will need skills that are much more specialized than those available today. Staffers will look for skills that are based on database operations, security, migration, duplication, and so on. As entire enterprise systems shift to the cloud, we will see more new and specialized areas of expertise arrive on the scene.
ALSO READ: DevOps vs. CloudOps: What's the Difference?
CloudOps Is Expected To Witness Exponential Growth
With cloud computing on track to become the most technology-heavy paradigm shift in IT, the industry is face to face with several challenges. The rapid acceleration of cloud migration and net-new development is sure to give a major boost to tools that facilitate the end-to-end processes involved in CloudOps.
There are multitudes of approaches and tools to consider to properly implement CloudOps and its capabilities. You can begin exploring the options available today by booking a free consultation with us.
