My View Point: Cloud Strategy 2

In the previous post, we discussed IAAS, PAAS, and SAAS. Also, we discussed Public Cloud, Private Cloud, and Hybrid.

In this post, we will see the players in these areas and their market share and projections. Also, we will see skills one should possess to be relevant in these changing times.

Present landscape of cloud users in the Public Cloud is 89% and Private 72% out of which, public-only is 22%, and private-only is 5%. These figures show that there are 67% of the cloud installations are the hybrid.

Adoption metrics of various public cloud providers: The AWS dominates this space and Azure, Google clouds follow suit in #2 and #3 positions. However, the rate of Azure adoption is growing much faster rate than the other two providers by around 20%.

Adoption metrics of various private cloud providers: Private cloud adoption though waning Among enterprises, VMware vSphere dominates the space with 42% followed by and vCloud Suite at 20%. Whether or not these meet the accepted definition of cloud computing, this the market adoption. Though Azure Pack/Stack ranks sixth at present with 14% in this space, there is clear cut accelerated growth that is seen with 30% enterprises are experimenting with it and are planning to use the private cloud shortly. 

Coming to the services that are being used in public cloud is more or less symmetrically distributed, in the areas of Database as a Service dominating the service at 35% followed by Push Notifications at 32%, caching at 27% and mobile services at 26%.

Looking at the adoption rates the immediate questions come to the mind is, whether or not all applications that are running today are candidates for cloud migration? The answer is "No." There are applications which are not compatible for cloud migrations, for example, PDP11 and Mainframe systems. The option for these would be co-location data centers with managed services, wherein the customer owns both hardware and software but outsources the managing services to colo provider. The modern evolution leaves us with the impression that there is going to be managed services but only with colo providers as all applications can not be moved to the cloud.

In the coming 3 to 4 years, there would be a mass of applications which would be moving to cloud, which is not complex and the cloud migration tools of today and tomorrow can handle. But at the same time though there is a possibility of migrating to the cloud, because of their size many databases may not be candidates for cloud migrations.

Managing the complex applications to be cloud ready is the space where niche cloud providers may jump in and occupy their slot making the migrations possible with their tools and toolsets giving rise to the concept of multi-cloud environments.

Now, what is stopping many companies from trying out the cloud options to pursue? The only one limiting factor at this point is the lack of skills. The industry is finding it very difficult to tap the talent who does the right first time. The present day availability mandates different breed of cats with various skills. Although some unlearning may help most, it would be a different mindset besides the skills.

The emergence of Cloud architect besides development architects and IT architects shows us the new skills required in the cloud computing. 

To be a Cloud Architect, the following skills are must and would be in high demand in the coming years: Internet capabilities; which include strong skills around the full stack, with a particular interest in scripting (Javascript/Live script/Typescript). Operating system skills with virtualizations along with open source tools and languages would be the necessary skills to look.

Understanding of security protocols at various levels of the technology stack in a landscape with associated regulations is a must.

Database and data skills in relational, nonrelational, columnar with design capabilities and which can ingest data from the cloud and other formats of the landscapes and environments.

Cloud computing is driving the world towards services, the talent around creation and consumption of services across devices and applications is the crux of great user experience.

Needless to say troubleshooting skills in the above areas with project/program management skills will drive the careers northwards. 

Last word: Let us embrace the mindset of Millennium Tech Skills to survive in the new paradigm of IT services industry.