Top 10 Cloud Predictions for 2017 by Oracle

Oracle’s predictions for cloud computing in 2017 examine the forces that will influence the business ecosystem to help companies prioritize and adapt to today’s realities. As the future gets reshaped by digital transformation, these predictions will help business leaders and CXOs plan and execute cloud strategies to help organizations emerge as winners.

1. Cloud-based mission-critical workloads will take off- Cloud has long promised the migration of all enterprise production workloads. But that migration has yet to happen. The chief barrier to cloud migration remains a lack of commitment and recourse to support production service level agreements. On one hand, cloud providers are limiting their accountability as they lack the talent to support custom portfolios. On the other, they’re failing to provide sufficient control into the public data centre to self-manage service-level agreements. The IaaS provider best equipped to take more responsibility and deliver the control tenants demand will be the one to drive cloud migration in 2017.

2. Corporate-owned data center numbers will plummet- As organizations focus their IT spending on cloud computing, they’ll begin to migrate their workloads from corporate owned data centers to purpose-built facilities, managed and run by enterprise cloud providers. Oracle predicts that corporate-owned data center numbers will fall 80 percent by 2025, and the same percentage of IT spending will be devoted to cloud services.

3. Enterprise cloud becomes the most secure place for IT processing- In years past, security was a major barrier to cloud investment. Data sovereignty, data privacy, and control issues deterred many organizations from pursuing cloud adoption. But in future, those very same concerns will be the things that draw new organizations to the cloud. Established cloud vendors with solid security track records have the expertise and resources to deploy layers of defence that many companies simply cannot duplicate in-house.

4. Digital transformation becomes the norm- Technological advancements provide unprecedented opportunities for businesses to expand, innovate, and create new value. Sectors including healthcare, manufacturing, and even urban planning have been reimagined and redefined by the cloud.

5. The rise of intelligent applications- The software behind many online shopping sites and on demand music services is a highly successful and highly pervasive form of AI. These systems depend on technology infrastructure capable of importing, analyzing, and interpreting huge volumes of data before acting on it—all without human intervention.

6. Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets real- AI and robotics have carved out a niche in the manufacturing sector, and now these technologies are poised to bring their exciting benefits to a host of new industries. The AI space is white-hot, and it’s being fueled by the data explosion. Machine learning algorithms find patterns in enormous volumes of digital information and use that data to train, learn, and become even smarter.

7. Developers do more with less coding- This year, a new tool looks set to join cloud app developers’ toolkits. “Visual” or “low” coding will be everywhere in 2017. IT teams are often stuck with a backlog of work, preventing them from delivering applications quickly enough to capitalize on new opportunities. Visual coding enables quick, straightforward development and extension of enterprise applications.

8. The cloud empowers small business innovation- Cloud has become a catalyst for small business growth, allowing them to innovate freely, carve out new markets, and disrupt the status quo. The digital economy demands that companies of all sizes compete based on technology enabled value. The cloud is allowing small businesses to innovate, experiment, and sustain ongoing profitability.

9. 60 percent of IT organizations move systems management to the cloud - Over 90 percent of companies have multiple systems management tools, but just 6 percent trust their incomplete data. Consequently, IT operations professionals struggle to create effective management approaches. The pace of business is increasing. As more organizations adopt DevOps practices and focus on digital experience, they’ll need to eliminate management data silos and embrace machine learning just to keep up. Some have already embraced systems management in the cloud, unifying management data across multiple clouds and on premises. Others are benefiting from data science applied to the operational management problem. Only Oracle Management Cloud provides an intelligent, unified, cloud-based approach that applies machine learning to the complete operational data set.

10. 50 percent of DevTest will move to the cloud- With on-premises hardware and software, IT teams have to buy, license, and configure everything to create development environments that hopefully match production environments. This year, widespread adoption of cloud DevTest is expected.

“India is uniquely positioned to benefit from cloud computing as cloud becomes an essential component of any organizations’ IT and business strategies. Increased government spending on digital technologies, coupled with heightened demand from the private sector, continues to be a great boost for the industry. At Oracle, we strongly believe that cloud is going to be the catalyst and force-multiplier that will transform the way technology is consumed by the world in 2017,” said Shailender Kumar, Managing Director, Oracle India.