A Few Key Trends for Cloud Computing in 2015: Hybrid Cloud and Multi Cloud Approaches

Gigaom Research‘s recently released report, Cloud Computing Market Trends in 2015, Written by Gigaom Reseach Analyst Paul Miller, highlights a few themes not typically outlined in these types of documents. Rather than listing market attributes, key players, and technology offerings, Miller attempts to outline a small number of “overarching themes” that he feels will help shape development in the cloud-computing market. One point to be made here is that Miller quickly points out that he feels that cloud-computing is still fairly young and that, “both buyers and suppliers still grapple with what this industry will become and what their place within it should be.”

Not to give away too much, and you can access your free copy of the report here, we wanted to point out two of their larger themes Miller highlights in his report. Those two themes being the idea of a hybrid cloud approach seems to be the “default choice”, and the interest in Multi-cloud continues to grow. In regards to the first theme of hybrid clouds Miller writes that, “In the past year or two, hybrid clouds, which mix public cloud infrastructure with on-premises, hosted, or colocated IT, have become increasingly prominent.“ He uses examples of how both public cloud suppliers (AWS/Rackspace) and companies with established footprints within enterprise data centers (VMware/Mircrosoft) are increasing their offerings to cater towards this Hybrid Cloud approach.

While companies will certainly be interested in keeping certain aspect of their IT infrastructure strictly on premise, Miller does offer a number of advantages appealing aspects to public, private and hybrid cloud approached. Here a just a few.

• Public clouds support rapid development and deployment of new product offerings, and can make it far easier to deliver new and existing products into geographically distant markets.
• Private clouds simplify the process of meeting regulatory restrictions around the location and processing of sensitive data while satisfying executives and customers who remain wary about the security of public-cloud infrastructure.
• Hybrid clouds offer the most cost-effective and flexible way to meet all of the above requirements.

The Multicloud approach is a popular one and as Miller indicates, one that will continue to grow. He writes, “Rather than restricting themselves to one public-cloud provider and one technical solution for their on-premises private cloud, more and more companies are explicitly choosing a multicloud approach that combines several solutions.” A large theme around Multicloud is the idea of not putting all your eggs into one basket. At the same time, a company can bring in a number of best-of-breed solutions to address certain aspects of their IT while not allowing one third party too much control over a large majority of the IT functions. For Miller this is about enabling choice and spreading risk for the IT buyer.

For another Cloud Computing report check out our Solutions Review 2015 Cloud Platform Solutions. This report will outline market attributes, key players and technology offerings in the Cloud Market cover everything from iPaaS, PaaS, SaaS and BaaS solutions. Between the Gigaon Research Report and the Solutions Review Guide you should have the best of both worlds.