Author: JAY CHAPEL, Published December 16, 2019

Original link: https://devops.com/the-top-six-cloud-computing-trends-of-2019/

Throughout 2019, cloud computing has been one of the hottest topics in technology and business media. This is not surprising as the cloud computing industry has been growing rapidly over the past few years. Synergy Research Group recently reported that the overall growth rate of public cloud is 37%. They also noted that the public IaaS and PaaS markets have doubled in just two years, and their forecasts show they will double again in the next three years.

While steady growth is expected this year, some notable trends still stand out. When experts look back at 2019, they may highlight the following cloud computing trends that impacted the year:

The Rise of Enterprise Cloud Managers

We recently conducted a study of ParkMyCloud users, and the results show that more and more companies have cloud or their cloud provider names (such as AWS) visible in their technology leadership positions. This indicates that the professionalization of individuals managing and architecting cloud infrastructure is increasing. Whether called enterprise cloud managers, cloud architects, or similar titles, 2019 saw the emergence of specialized roles to oversee and guide cloud operations.

Consolidated Multi-Cloud Views

As large and small businesses continue to adopt and use multiple public clouds, we've seen rapidly growing demand in 2019 for consolidated multi-cloud views and the ability to take action across multiple clouds. Third-party tools providing this functionality enable enterprises to choose a single tool to orchestrate, manage, govern, and optimize their hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Many customers also realized the need to simplify operations—cloud-native tools aren't always easy to use.

Multi-Cloud Has Arrived

Multi-cloud truly emerged in 2019 and will only grow in 2020. Most organizations now use multi-cloud. In fact, most studies show that over 80% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy. Reasons cited include the need to avoid vendor lock-in, the ability to leverage best-of-breed cloud services from each cloud provider, and choices for application efficiency.

More Automation

One of the biggest technical benefits of DevOps methods is the automatic resolution of manual tasks that plague operations and critical projects. Therefore, the automation trend continued to expand in 2019.

More Abstraction

In 2019, IT became increasingly abstract. This means growth in container usage and models that allow developers to worry less and less about infrastructure (such as serverless and PaaS).

Containers Become Mainstream

Application containerization is more than just a new buzzword in cloud computing. It's changing how resources are deployed to the cloud. More and more companies in 2019 leveraged container services like Kubernetes and cloud-native services like EKS, AKS, and GKS.

Business continued to move to the cloud in 2019, and the six trends above show the industry is growing, sometimes in unpredictable ways. There's no doubt that next year will bring some surprises too. However, the trend of cloud and related services expansion is clear for the foreseeable future.