As the world recovers from the effects of COVID-19 and its impact, digital transformation is one of the few bright lights of the dark era in humanity’s history. But, several enterprises’ efforts have opened pandora’s box with data breaches ever so frequent. Industry experts have given insight into what to expect from the cloud in 2023. Here are the thoughts.
Paul Lancaster, Director of Pre Sales Eng. at Commvault
Over the past few years, we have seen sectors that have undergone extensive data transformation targeted by cyber-attacks. With data and workload sprawl being a daily challenge for IT leaders today – there is a need to future-proof and harness the ongoing data sprawl to get the best data insights yet mitigating the ever-growing cyberthreats.
To keep up with the challenging economic landscape, enterprises are increasing their investment in smart technology, such as edge and cloud computing. This requires a new data management approach that protect the full range of technologies and data assets being utilised. Essentially, allowing business leaders and enterprises the ability to innovate at speed, business-critical problems become more than a tech focus, instead they are a business focus.
For business leaders and enterprises that understand this trend, in 2023 they will be able to store, protect, secure, govern and use their data much more effectively. These capabilities will define the data management mindset that will lead to improving business outcomes, minimising data risks while evolving within the ever-changing technology market.
Lars Kint, Senior Developer Advocate at Pluralsight
Cloud adoption has been the cornerstone of the digital transformation journey for most Australian businesses. In fact, a recent report from Pluralsight found 75% of technology leaders surveyed say they’re building all new products and features in the cloud moving forward. Cloud computing is no longer the future of technology. It’s firmly in the present.
The multi-cloud strategy will continue to form an integral part of the industry landscape. More enterprises are embracing multi-cloud by either design or happenstance and will therefore accelerate the demand for tools needed to manage the span of this increased complexity.
It will be necessary for technologists to become multi-lingual across more cloud providers. But many are failing to reap the benefits that come from cloud computing, like heightened flexibility, scalability and improved speed to market, without falling into the many pitfalls multicloud can bring too. This has been mainly due to a prevailing shortage in specialised cloud skills, with only 4% of Aussie respondents having significant cloud-related experience.
Knowing that tech talent is getting more difficult to hire, and that skills gaps in key proficiency areas are a growing threat, organisations must begin to invest in upskilling and future-proofing their existing tech teams. Doing so will set the organisations who create and cultivate talent from within apart from the organisations that simply consume talent.
Angeline Maronese, MD, ANZ at Rackspace Technology
While current global economic conditions have seen businesses more cost conscious than ever, few Australian businesses are scaling back on IT investment, instead most are committed to spending more on cloud technologies in particular. According to new research, 62% of Australian IT businesses are adopting a variety of approaches to adjust to the current economic climate, led by an increased focus on cloud projects to drive efficiencies.
Across all regions, leaders have identified cloud projects as the single most important factor in navigating the economic climate. As businesses assess spending and seek efficiencies during uncertain times, IT decision-makers are focusing on innovation projects to meet “tech-savvy” consumer expectations and to offer a differentiated user experience.
With cloud, businesses can leverage plug-and-play solutions that enable faster deployment of services through PaaS and SaaS services, providing flexibility and scalability to accommodate an increasing user or transaction base while delivering exceptional performance.
However, amid economic uncertainty, workforce reductions and rising cybersecurity threats, firms will need to find a solution to an ongoing scarcity of IT talent in a market where demand exceeds supply, especially in the key areas of cybersecurity, machine learning and analytics.
As businesses increasingly look to keep support and technology resources onshore, IT business leaders will need find new ways to bridge talent gaps, such as leveraging a strategic use of external resources. With new smarter sourcing standards to deliver support, these teams can act as a true extension of their customers’ business and their internal teams, freeing up time for workers to train in the in-demand skills crucial to becoming specialists.
Richard Gerdis, Vice President, APJ at LogicMonitor
2023 is going to be a time of reset and re-evaluation. The past couple of years have been turbulent for many organisations and as we enter a new year, the weight of a looming recession will cause them to look internally and optimise some of the solutions that were born out of necessity during the pandemic. As enterprises maintain complex hybrid cloud infrastructures, many will aim to gain greater control to reduce risk in the long term.
With that comes the need for visibility of cloud data to maximise workflow and gain cost insights, which will be crucial to balancing strict budgets in 2023. Next year, boosting business agility will be key. Adopting this tech will enable firms to cut operational costs by automating menial tasks while providing real-time data to eliminate performance bottlenecks.
Furthermore, with companies embracing digital transformation and the skills gap only expanding, IT teams have not had the chance to develop cloud skills at the pace required. Moving forward, we’ll see greater priority from organisations on nurturing talent internally and investment in training their workforce to satisfy the growing demand for cloud services.
