eWeekChat

A8: We’ll continue to see growth for some time with specialization as cloud platforms mature. Plus, vendors like BMC are expanding #cloud use to power #SaaS offerings, so there’s room for growth.

A8: There will be a handful of big enterprise software players like IBM RedHat or VMWare who will be “Switzerland” powering multi-cloud solutions across large hyperscalers. Polycloud workloads and Cross cloud network connectivity will be tablestakes as part of a cloud offering.

A8. A lot more diversity - I mean the right cloud for the right workload. Today the app teams are happy to run in the cloud of their choice. Its Infra, operations and common services that poses as an impediment. Some abstractions can help.

A8: sustainability will become a consideration in multi-cloud choices. hosting workloads in clouds with the most efficient infrastructure for the type of compute/storage/network needed. multi-cloud enables those choices and flexibility

Also it will be interesting to see if the hyperscalers will whole heartedly start building common services for other clouds. Seen that in GCP Anthos, Oracle to Azure interconnects etc - but nothing mainstream.

Q8: explosion, more workloads moving, new apps being written for the cloud with different needs...tools for observability, optimization and security will be critical and talent to manage these will be challenge

@GaneshJKRam Poly-cloud - now I have to look that one up :-).

@jwittich Sustainability will be a big part of decision making

@jwittich Resource optimization (and as a result cost optimization)  will also be key to achieve #sustainability

@GaneshJKRam Well, we (VMware) certainly hope so!

@GaneshJKRam @jwittich Sustainability is THE growing concept.

will be interesting to see how tools evolve over time to account for efficiency. providing better granularity into specific infra choices by workload

A8. Predicting 5 years into IT future is always fun :). More and more SaaS no doubt. Any cloud service will be available in all places, almost nothing will be offered in a way that isnt a service--and this includes on-premises.

@codyhosterman Hard to argue with that.

We should visit this thread in a couple of years :-)

A8: I expect multi-cloud will be somewhat easier for end users, but still quite challenging. After all, we're still early in cloud adoption with plenty of challenges there, and multi-cloud presents additional challenges to the base level of cloud adoption challenges

@ramsba - yes - past statements can come back to haunt :)

We are likely to see more specialized multi-cloud providers that offer vertical specific cloud services (data lakes, analytics, AI/ML, ...) while using the combined buying power of entire verticals to lower costs for their customers.

A7: Yes and no. There are still workloads in private #datacenters that are ripe for moving. Most customers are hybrid/multicloud - i.e., they have some applications & infrastructure in data centers that they manage w/ the rest spread across multiple public #cloud platforms.

A7: dont believe the hype :-), data centers will be around for a while, we see many customers requiring hybrid architectures especially in finserv and healthcare

A7: No. There is significant amount of critical infrastructure that continues to run in Data centers. If the workloads are large, simple on design and predictable in terms of elasticity & growth, the economics are not in favor of a cloud migration. Hybrid cloud is a solution.

A7: there won't ever be a one-size-fits-all solution for compute. variety to models will continue to persist. all clouds of some sort, but different models: multi-cloud, single-cloud, hybrid, on-prem, etc.

#HybridisHeretoStay

@GaneshJKRam That attitude seems to be growing.

A7: Multi-cloud includes the datacenter! It is an important part of a MC strategy. Not only often from a cost perspective, but HW innovation and best of breed choice. For companies where their infrastructure stack is part of their differentiation--it will always be critical.

A7. I think any Enterprise that has been around for 5+ years knows hybrid & multi-cloud together are the new normal & are here to stay. Edge is a good example of this, so are the on-premise ones (hospital floor, manufacturing floor, onsite maintenance etc.)

There will be a consolidation of data centers for large enterprises in particular - footprints will come down - bit it is not going away.

@codyhosterman The traditional datacenter though is changing. Introducing the cloud operating model for resources will be the future.

@codyhosterman +1, i view it the same way, its part of the overall MC architecture

@codyhosterman - agree. It is changing - but not fully replaceable yet.

agree as well with @codyhosterman, multi-cloud includes all cloud models. its about the arch not the owner/location/size.

This does bring up an interesting operating model choice. Do I start with cloud operational model and homogenize that to DC, or the other way around. Or are these 2 going to be different altogether.

Multi-Cloud means now many big centralized cloud providers, mini-regionalized clouding providers , Edge Cloud Providers and yes many Data Centers.

@GaneshJKRam Completely agree. The key question isn't will there be private data centers. It's what percentage of overall enterprise infrastructure footprint will they represent. Over (a long period of) time, will be small percentage.

@ramsba Cost model is different. So, which direction you come from Data center to Cloud or Cloud to Data center (we have seen people moving in both directions due to Cost , operational cost and also Speed/Agility being the reasons.

Q7: Data centers are not going away yet. Remember many companies that used to be traditional tech companies, are not becoming Cloud Companies e.g. Agriculture, Logistics, etc. and such companies need specialization and distribution that require them to have their own data centers

@codyhosterman I agree. Data center ownership is changing. Now it is not just traditional IT companies, but high value, regulatory heavy industries transforming and need Data Centers to build what they can't get just in time from cloud provdiers

A6: Machine Learning has been democratized well across clouds but larger AI is not – capabilities are very different. Edge is also a big usecase for us– there is a strong need for being very close to the customer for latency – driver here “being global and local” at the same time

A6: i see those as big drivers. higher performance edge applications like AI inferencing and retraining are driving the need for multi-cloud support across geos

A6:very much so, in the security space we see higher need for AI solutions that leverage user behavior across multicloud applications to determine risk and take action if needed

A6. Oh related but also different. I think use-cases like industry 4.0, autonomous capabilities, gaming, drones etc do make legitimate edge use-cases. However there's also the edge or AI-washing - things that make you go "is that really needed ?"

A6: Edge (Cloud) is an augment to the Cloud , it is easy to start there and functions like CDN, WAF, BOT, DDOS, real-Time Analytics , multi-cloud observability can give instant benefits without moving to hosting the compute and data in other clouds

A6: Well AI certainly--different clouds are specializing in different types from a service perspective, so as different clouds create different competencies we will see this grow. This also drives data mobility needs. Edge will need to feed data to the right cloud

@GaneshJKRam +1. Interesting that many of the edge use-cases are really about latency and proximity.

@ilakshmis totally agree on edge being part of Cloud leveraging optimization tools to improve experience

A6: we see customers using Cloud data/ML for training large data sets and bring the models at edge for use cases described above, autonomous cars, , Personalized in-store , in-stadium experiences, etc.

A6:  Leveraging #AI-powered intelligence, #ML or #analytics across multiple clouds is important. With increasingly complex operational needs of modern environments, and increasing volume of data - #AI/ML is realistically the only cost-effective way to tackle that.

@arnlopez - security is clearly an area where we see a lot of AI based solutions across clouds. Again, some clouds have far better offerings than the others.

@iLakshmiS Good ones - these make legit cases for edge. Gaming, industry 4.0 manufacturing use-cases are increasingly getting popular...

A6 AI/ML is clearly growing enormously in enterprise adoption. However, it's one of the areas with the greatest difference in functionality among the big three cloud providers. That provides opportunities to pick and choose for use case and drives multi-cloud.

@bernardgolden But also makes trying to develop an ML app that is portable pretty challenging

Media and Entertainment , that includes basically anything that has interactive experience (gaming, live streaming, user generated contents based platforms , are all using Edge successfully. Security and Privacy is also being enforced at Edge for all industries.

@ramsba Heh. Edgewashing. Nice.

@bernardgolden Agree.. each cloud provider is on a journey of their own and ML works as best as the data the cloud provider is subscribed to or allowed to use. So, the value the Enterprise gets is also different from each cloud.

A6 Edge can be more or less like a hyperscale environment. If it is an air gap environment, that can be more challenging in terms of how to run a control plane.

AI and ML capabilities of the cloud are attractive but the required models are data hungry and will bind customers to the cloud provider indefinitely. Multi-cloud portability to have pricing leverage can be absolutely fundamental.