PUBLIC CLOUD IS HERE TO STAY!
is becoming increasingly popular among Dutch companies, but the fact that even more and more (semi)governments are embracing the Public Cloud is fairly new. This is a good indication that the importance of Public Cloud is growing and that it is impossible to imagine our daily lives without it. In business as well as as as individuals, we consume more and more online services using our mobile devices, such as our smartphones and tablets. More traditionally minded organisations, such as governments, cannot of course be left behind at this point. This all revolves around being able to develop online services quickly and remain scalable and available even when demand is high.
Parallel to this trend, it appears that for the end user, it no longer really matters where an application is running, as long as it can be reached, in a safe and easy way of course. For service providers, there is an increasing demand to take a broader look at traditional Cloud solutions and platforms, which means that it is precisely the public Cloud that is growing enormously in popularity. Why? The convenience of public Cloud ensures rapid adoption in the development process of a service or application. It is exactly this concept of always being available and configurable, combined with paying according to use, that makes it so attractive. Does that mean Private Cloud has been written off? Certainly not!
As easy as it is to acquire Public Cloud, it often comes with a number of challenges. Think of the enormous choice of services from AWS or Azure, for example, and then deploying them correctly, while also ensuring that you remain in control of the deployed services: just consider the costs and proper use of all those services. All these things are more manageable and predictable in a Private Cloud, often with low-threshold support as well. The solution in this case is to embrace the best of all the various Cloud worlds.
At Fundaments, we take care of this. Our model of public Cloud has been projected onto our Private Cloud, which means you can now also purchase it in the same simple way and pay by the hour. With this, we make the difference between using Public and Private Cloud smaller. In addition, there are developments that Public Cloud services can be hosted in a local data centre and therefore monitored in a Fundaments managed service. You can therefore see that the intertwining of Clouds is going to the next level!
FROM CLOUD DEPENDENT NAAR ANY CLOUD
The fact that the adoption around public Cloud is only growing has implications for service providers (SaaS providers), of course. Because, how do they deal with it? For them, it is very important to use a development mode that does not involve a lock-in on a Cloud technology. To put it briefly, they need to ensure that they become Cloud independent. This can be achieved by ensuring that their platform works on any Cloud. Cloud platform technology vendors are responding to this. One example is using VMware technology on the AWS Cloud (VMware on AWS), as well as hosting AWS Outposts in a local data centre. This makes it possible to deploy your AWS services in your local data centre. But there are further developments in this. An important one is using microservices in an application: dividing the application into small parts, which can be hosted and developed separately. This is also known as containerisation.
As an application developer, you want to be able to develop quickly. To achieve this, you need to be able to pull your applications apart (containerise). Meanwhile, of course, you want these containers to be managed properly. One important name that jumps out at this point is Kubernetes. The big players in the market, such as VMware, Azure and AWS, embrace Kubernetes and all offer a platform for Kubernetes environments. This shows that this is the very way to make your Cloud technology independent and hence make yourself Cloud-independent.
A great example of the next step in Cloud intertwining is the example of AWS EKS Anywhere: this takes the extension of the public AWS Cloud (as with Outposts) even further, that is by equalising the way Kubernetes clusters are managed and therefore offered in a hosted environment outside AWS itself.
For 2021, I expect more trends like this: a further merging of services and Cloud platforms with the aim of a simplified end-user experience and further simplified exchange between Cloud platforms.
And it is this exact broadening of services that creates more opportunities when it comes to being able to use a Cloud platform. Of course, using each solution correctly will still remain a challenge, but you can certainly find a good partner in this in the coming year too at Fundaments!
