Forrester Cloud Predictions for 2020 | SUSE Communities

Forrester Cloud Predictions for 2020

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Recently, Forrester released a report, which set out the five ways cloud computing will change in 2020. TechRepublic produced an excellent writeup of the report, which made for very interesting reading.

The predictions cover a few key areas – the first looks at IBM and Oracle, suggesting that they will shift away from the cloud provider space, moving towards the development platform space instead. Many companies have tried to compete with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google and (more recently) Alibaba over the years and have realised that their budgets didn’t allow them to keep pace with not just the rate of innovation at the hyperscale cloud providers, but also the rate that price cuts were announced. IBM and Oracle are enormous companies, but Forrester predict that they will choose to focus more on, in IBM’s case, helping customers use OpenShift, and for Oracle their SaaS and autonomous database products.

SUSE announced just last month that the latest version of Oracle Database (19c) had been certified to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15, and you can find bring your own subscription (BYOS, also known as BYOL) SLES images on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace. Both of these parts of the Oracle business continue to grow, and we are proud to be partnered with Oracle, IBM, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google (amongst others) to enable us to give our customers ultimate flexibility in where and how they deploy their open source workloads.

The rise of HPC

The Forrester team then predict the continued rise of high performance computing (HPC) use in public cloud. For many, this may not be an obvious trend – HPC for many means gigantic supercomputers crunching huge amounts of data, which was traditionally carried out on-premises due to the sheer cost of hardware. SUSE have been operating in this area for many years now, and we’re proud that SUSE Linux Enterprise runs on 21 of the top 50 supercomputers and 37 percent of the top 100 systems. In all, over half of the paid Linux OS systems in the HPC TOP500 use SUSE Linux Enterprise.

As the hyperscaler clouds have added more HPC capabilities and larger instances, it is now possible to realistically run some HPC applications within their cloud environments. It won’t fit for every use case, but it’s certainly a viable option now – we recently published a whitepaper that talks about it. Here at SUSE, we have seen a regular increase in the number of customers using SUSE Enterprise Linux for HPC on our cloud service provider partners’ platforms over the past year, and expect to see this continue to rise through 2020 and beyond.

Cloud security

Of course, it wouldn’t be a set of cloud predictions without a reference to security, and Forrester do not disappoint. While security in the public cloud has been proven to be somewhat of a non-issue for many, there have been a number of substantial and high profile breaches on public cloud of late, such as the Capital One hack. Cloud providers will no doubt look to bolster their security arsenals through acquisition, as VMware already did with Carbon Black. However, a large part of security in the cloud remains the responsibility of the customer, so internal IT teams must step up to the plate. Security consultancy firms will see a rise in revenue as a result, and salaries for cyber-security experts will continue to increase.

It is clear that this phenomenon called cloud that has transformed the way that companies do business around the world is not going away. Whether you agree with Forrester’s predictions, or have your own beliefs around what 2020 will hold for cloud computing and IT in general, you can rely on SUSE to have your back. Our partnerships with the global hyperscalers, with cloud service providers, GSIs, managed service providers around the globe, and with the world’s leading independent software and hardware vendors means that whatever you’re trying to do, we can support and guide you through your journey. Here at SUSE we have over 25 years of experience in making open source simpler for enterprises, and with a world-class services team at your beck and call, you can rest easy and know that whatever the future holds, you’re in safe hands.

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Matthew Johns I have over 20 years' experience in the IT, cloud and hosting industry gained in a variety of roles spanning project management to product release and product marketing. I’m responsible for product marketing for SUSE OpenStack Cloud, and have been working with OpenStack since it was released in 2010. Outside of work, I enjoy running, cycling, great beer (craft, cask, keg - call it what you like as long as it tastes good), spending time with my family, playing the piano and charity fundraising – I’ve been supporting the Movember Foundation since 2006, and have run multiple races, climbed mountains and cycled around the UK for many charities over the years.