PUBLIC CLOUD IS HERE TO STAY!
We have known for some time that Public Cloud is becoming increasingly popular among Dutch companies, but the fact that even more (semi-)government bodies are embracing the public Cloud is quite new. This clearly shows that the importance of Public Cloud is growing and has become an integral part of our daily lives. In business and as private individuals, we are consuming more and more online services via our mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. More traditional organizations, such as government agencies, naturally cannot afford to lag behind. It is all about being able to develop online services quickly and remaining scalable and available, even when demand is high.
Parallel to this trend, it turns out that for the end user, it no longer really matters where an application runs, as long as it can be accessed in a simple and secure way. For service providers, there is an increasing demand to look beyond traditional Cloud solutions and platforms, which is why the public Cloud is growing so rapidly in popularity. Why? The ease of use of the public Cloud ensures rapid adoption in the development process of a service or application. The concept of being always available and configurable, combined with pay-as-you-go pricing, is what makes this model so attractive. Is Private Cloud obsolete, then? Certainly not!
As easy as it is to purchase Public Cloud, it often comes with a number of challenges. Think of the vast array of services from providers like AWS or Azure, the subsequent correct implementation of these, and ensuring you remain in control of the deployed services: consider just the costs and the proper use of all those services. All these aspects are more transparent and predictable in a Private Cloud, often supported by accessible assistance. The solution in this case is to embrace the best of all different Cloud worlds.
At Fundaments, we make this possible. We have projected the public Cloud model onto our Private Cloud, allowing you to purchase it in the same simple way and pay by the hour. This narrows the gap between using Public and Private Cloud. Furthermore, there are developments where public Cloud services can be hosted in a local data center and thus monitored within a service managed by Fundaments. You can see that the integration of Clouds is moving to the next level!
FROM CLOUD-DEPENDENT TO ANY CLOUD
The fact that the adoption of public cloud is only growing naturally has consequences for service providers (SaaS vendors). After all, how do they deal with this? For them, it is of great importance to use a development method that does not involve a lock-in to a specific cloud technology. In short, they must ensure they become cloud-independent. They can achieve this by ensuring their platform works in any cloud. Providers of cloud platform technologies are responding to this. An example of this is the use of VMware technology on the AWS Cloud (VMware on AWS), as well as hosting AWS Outposts in a local data center. This makes it possible to roll out your AWS services in your local data center. But there are further developments in this area. An important one is the use of microservices in an application: breaking the application down into small components that can be hosted and developed separately. This is also known as containerization. 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 (containerize them). Meanwhile, you naturally want these containers to be well-managed. An important name that stands out here is Kubernetes. The major players in the market, such as VMware, Azure, and AWS, are embracing Kubernetes and all offer a platform for Kubernetes environments. You can see that this is precisely how you can make your cloud technology independent and thus make yourself cloud-independent. A great example of the next step in cloud integration is AWS EKS Anywhere: here, the extension of the public AWS Cloud (as with Outposts) is taken even further by standardizing the way Kubernetes clusters are managed and offering them in a hosted environment outside of AWS itself. For 2021, I expect more trends like this: a further merging of services and cloud platforms with the goal of a simplified end-user experience and further simplified exchange between cloud platforms. And it is precisely this broadening of services that creates more possibilities when it comes to using a cloud platform. Of course, using every solution correctly will always remain a challenge, but you can certainly continue to count on Fundaments as a great partner for that in the coming year!
