2019: The Year of Multi-Cloud

As we enter 2019 and with Gartner forecasting cloud spending in Australia to reach $7.7 billion by 2021, organisations are facing greater cloud complexity and cost management challenges than ever before. Based on our Survive the Cloud Evolution whitepaper and numerous conversations I have had with Rackspace customers, I’ve put together my cloud predictions for 2019. Strap yourselves in, next year will be a big one!

Australian organisations will go multi-cloud to mitigate transformation risks

2019 will be the year of multi-cloud, with organisations spreading their risk across multiple vendors. In the case one vendor decides to raise their price, change their offer, or simply faces an outage, IT managers will require the flexibility to quickly spread critical workloads across other platforms, and keep delivering on what their business, staff and customers need in real-time.

Cost-governance and cost control will become top of mind

As organisations become more mature in their cloud journeys, they will increasingly turn to multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments. While this has many advantages, it will also create cost challenges for IT leaders, which will be a top priority next year.

Almost half (46%) of Australian IT decision-makers have deployed cloud projects that took longer than expected or went over budget (31%). Organisations should start 2019 by looking closely at their cloud environments. They should be conducting a broad cost and governance audit to identify areas where they might be spending more than they should, and need to look at how they could adapt the way their current cloud operations are run. IT managers must spend time painting a broad picture of what is being consumed, question the cost of cloud instead of solely focusing on its value, and identify a leader who will be responsible for controlling and governing cloud costs across the organisation.

Security: it’s all about securing applications and DevSecOps

Security and compliance remain the top concern for 60% of Australian IT decision-makers planning to embark on a new cloud project. As the regulatory landscape continues to tighten, security will remain a key challenge in 2019.

Despite local needs, we do not expect the pool of security talent to dramatically grow in 2019, and recruiting security experts will remain extremely difficult for IT teams. While talent is an important part of a successful security strategy, Australian organisations need to find new ways to deliver security without having to hire a whole new set of people. This will be made possible by focusing internal recruitment efforts on DevSecOps, and by bringing security to the forefront of every new development.

Enter the CIO (Cloud Integration Officer)

In 2019, we’ll see an increase in the number of organisations relying on third-party partners and technology vendors to help them navigate multi-cloud complexity. IT teams will begin reallocating their time and resources to managing third party vendors and internal stakeholders, rather than managing their organisation’s innovation and digital agenda.

In order to focus on driving value for the business, IT leaders need to build a new role dedicated to managing these external relationships. 2019 will be the year we see the rise of a new CIO role; the Cloud Integration Officer for organisations with a cloud-first strategy.

Get in touch with me or click here to learn more about how Rackspace can become your expert guide in navigating the complexity of multi-cloud in 2019.