As organizations use diverse open source platforms, they are faced with the increasingly insurmountable operational challenge of making it all work together efficiently, reliably and safely. We are approaching a new juncture in the adoption of open source. The primary focus is no longer about the development of software. It is becoming how to successfully use the software. Thus, we are approaching an era where operations will reign as the supreme open source challenge. – Scott Crenshaw, SVP Product and Strategy
2) Multi-cloud is now a reality
Just as the combination of public and private clouds is here to stay, major cloud providers like Rackspace, VMware and Microsoft are now enabling the use of multiple cloud vendors to work in tandem across different cloud deployments — a trend we call “multi-cloud,” and one I see growing in 2017. Different clouds serve different needs for different businesses, and we’re seeing that most enterprises will consume different clouds across multiple regions for varying use cases/workloads. The cost of migrating a legacy workload to be “cloudy” and move out of the customer datacenter can be prohibitive. – Kaushik Balasubramanian, Sr. Director of VMware practice
3) Security will complete its evolution from IT function, to ‘integrated business enabler’
As we accept the reality and evolve security operations to deal with today’s sophisticated and persistent adversaries, security will become more technologically dynamic and increasingly business focused. Comprehensive understanding of the business and the business-impact of the data and the systems that we protect will inform effective automation within efficient zero trust environments which allow few, or no standing permissions. – Daniel Clayton, Director of Operations, Rackspace Managed Security
4) OpenStack will become the API to the software-defined data center
In 2017, as the OpenStack community delivers the 15th and 16th major releases of the integrated projects (Ocata and Pike), this collection of projects will continue to represent one of the fastest growing open source communities in the world and will have unquestionably asserted its position as the de facto standard for building private clouds. The power of OpenStack continues to be the API – a standard interface allowing users and systems to interact with all manner of infrastructure including compute, network, storage and other fabric services. As more and more organizations leverage OpenStack to power their private clouds, they will begin to realize the potential of the software-defined data center and the agility and innovation it can bring. – Bryan Thompson, General Manager, OpenStack Private Cloud
5) The move to the application
Application automation will gain in prominence --- kicking off a shift of focus from the infrastructure to the application. Containers will see more mainstream/production adoption while there will be early experimentation with serverless architecture (e.g., AWS Lambda). – Prashanth Chandrasekar, Vice President & GM, Fanatical Support for AWS
6) Serverless architecture
Serverless computing is making developers’ lives easier, and if what I’m seeing and hearing holds true, 2017 is the year it will really take off. “Serverless,” of course, is a misnomer. There will always be servers; serverless architecture refers to applications that depend on third party services (backend-as-a-service) or custom code (function-as-a-service) — AWS Lambda being the most popular vendor host today. What serverless really means is that developers no longer have to worry about infrastructure. And as those barriers to IoT entry continue to fall, we’ll continue to see new players and their devices muscle into what appears to be an almost limitless potential market. – John Engates, Chief Technology Officer
7) Advanced workloads in Microsoft Azure will be the primary catalyst to fuel datacenter defection to Azure
Advancements in Azure like the Cortana Intelligence suite, Machine Learning, and the Azure Security Center will drive workloads to Azure in much greater numbers given the benefits of existing natively inside of Azure. DevOps transformation and DataCenter Consolidation has been the primary advantage to moving to Public Cloud up to this point. The beneficiaries have been primarily the IT community within a business. The higher-order capabilities mentioned above will have significant impacts on all areas of a business with significant tools to dynamically mine data, learn from actions of all type (not just machines), and keep the data and results secure. Microsoft’s cloud isn’t just focused on making computing more efficient – it’s focused on transforming business as we know it. – Jeff DeVerter, CTO of Microsoft Technologies
8) The release of Microsoft Azure Stack will make Azure the cloud of choice for enterprise workloads
As belts tighten in all IT organizations and higher-order IT skills remain in short supply, IT organizations will be seize the opportunity to standardize on Azure – public and private – as a platform of choice. Since the Azure Stack code is primarily derived from the same codebase as Azure – companies will be able to standardize on its own set of API’s and native Azure capabilities for their private cloud needs. These two products will bring a level of efficiency and capability to IT organizations not available before. – Jeff DeVerter, CTO of Microsoft Technologies
9) “Internet of Things” in your home
More of us will be talking to devices in our homes next year. You can’t visit Amazon.com without being bombarded by ads for Echo, the company’s audio cylinder that’s always connected to the cloud and interacts with you by voice, answering to the name Alexa. You can talk to Google Home through Google Assistant, and give commands to your Xbox with Cortana. I don’t think we’ll be waiting long before Microsoft rolls out something similar for the entire home. Apple is also hard at work on a home device to compete with Echo, based on its Siri voice assistant. Even your car will be in on the act, with dashboards that mimic your other devices, with always-on Wi-Fi connection. Tesla is bringing its technology to the masses with its (more) affordable Tesla 3 launch next year, while Chevy plans to give the Tesla a run for its money with the Bolt. – John Engates, Chief Technology Officer
