Headed into 2020, organizations are continuing their recent trend of adopting cloud-based IT network solutions, and those for systems management are now more than important than ever.
As of the turn of the decade, cloud-based systems management solutions have been notably adopted and scaled for specific uses by a variety of industries. Among other examples, G2 Learning Hub notes that marketing platforms have adopted products that use cloud technology to help them manage multi-channel consumer advertising campaigns, while healthcare institutions have found it useful to better organize and secure patient records.
More enterprises’ systems and infrastructure management migrating to the cloud
According to Network Computing, today’s enterprise IT network systems and infrastructure management is moving toward remote cloud hosted solutions and relies less on the functions of on-site data centers. In the release of newer products, technology vendors have placed an emphasis on facilitating the modernization and migration of organizations’ existing systems infrastructure to the cloud as a result of this IT management shift, CIO Dive reported.
Network Computing cites two interconnected reasons for the shift from data centers to cloud services: affordability and trustworthiness. In particular, cloud services providers are continuously proving their worthiness as vendors of relatively more secure, reliable and cheaper alternatives to traditional products used to build IT systems and their underlying infrastructure.
In an interview with Design News, 42Q Chief Business Officer Rajeev Gollarahalli explained that today’s cloud services infrastructure is much more secure than it was in years past due to the level of investment put into the technology, especially by major players in the tech industry. As a result, there has also been a shift from on-premises security to cloud-based solutions.
“I have always countered that you can’t secure data on premises as well as you can in a cloud…no single company can match that,” he said.
Vendors releasing more cloud-based systems management solutions
Network Computing reported that there have been swaths of different vendors that released updates to existing management services or developed new cloud-based management products over the past several years. Cloud management portals, for instance, permit administrators to remotely manage existing systems using the strategic deployment of hardware connected through points of presence (POPs). CMPs can also be used for the management of infrastructures built using software solutions, which in recent years have been offered by more vendors using the infrastructures of certain cloud-based services.
One notable example of recently developed cloud-based technology predicted to have a large impact in 2020 is software-defined wide area networking. Network World quoted an industry professional who described SD-WAN as a “connective tissue” linking all of an organization’s network domains for easier systems management.
The development of SD-WAN is a response to the limited management capabilities available for existing wide area networks, which have been unable to properly support certain Software-as-a-Service and enterprise cloud integration. Organizations can use SD-WAN to reduce costs associated with producing the required redundant links to keep POP connections from breaking in the event of data center downtime – another reason for the shift to the cloud servers.
A further trend that experts believe may occur this year is the adoption of secure access service edge, a network security solution that harnesses the capabilities of hybrid cloud networks. Both SD-WAN and cloud vendors already offer forms of SASE through added security capabilities and access restrictions, respectively. Yet with more edge and endpoints available, CIO’s should ask certain questions regarding their systems, such as whether IoT devices are connected to networks or how IaaS and PaaS services are used by different departments.
Setbacks still hindering some organizations’ cloud migration efforts
A McKinsey study found that despite all of the recent developments in cloud-based systems management, a majority of enterprises’ CIOs have faced delays in their migration efforts – nearly 60% reported that this has been caused by “technical and managerial talent gaps.” The study polled 52 businesses – nearly 80% of which had more than 5,000 employees. Furthermore, half of the respondents cited reasons such as security and compliance issues.
The McKinsey study also revealed that the businesses participating had an average of half of their workloads based in public and private cloud services, yet 80% reported that they have not seen any benefits of adopting such services, citing compatibility issues with existing legacy technology. As a result, CIOs are embracing the cloud as the “principal modernization enabler,” as the report notes, and are revamping their infrastructure stacking so systems can best accommodate the change. It’s estimated that by 2022, all major businesses will have closer to 75% of their workloads based in cloud services.
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