3 trends taking attention away from what’s running on your cloud

So much software is headed to the cloud. Gartner predicts the worldwide public cloud services market will grow 18 percent this year. That’s on top of years and years of growth.
Great. But is your company getting the most out of the software you’re moving onto the cloud? Do you have the info you need in order to make your cloud better? Hopefully you do. But if not, it’s because you are rightfully distracted by three familiar tech trends with new challenges in 2017.
Embracing shadow IT
I’d say that security is the number priority for all in IT. After all, it always seems like another day, another story about a major hack. Often IT security looks to limit the risks of a breach. But the long-troubling trend has IT architects asking: what happens when an employee uses a cloud-based solution or external service without the knowledge or approval of the business? This opens the business up for unplanned and unknown risks. And it happens quite a bit.
That’s where shadow IT comes in. Once thought of as a negative, these projects, which often live on the cloud, are now admired for their business innovation. For example, if the marketing department wants to try a new digital approach, they can test and then fold into the IT business if it’s successful.
Getting ahead of the Internet of Things (IoT)
It’s not like no one saw IoT coming. But the challenges it presents IT architects are ever-emerging. So architects are looking how to address the impact of the IoT, including increased network complexity and resource demand, emerging standards and which platforms to use for implementation. What is absolutely certain: IoT needs the cloud.
Betting on big data
The exabytes and zetabytes of data storehouses keep growing. (Does anyone think a terabyte is big anymore?) What has IT architects challenged here is that traditional solutions need numerous systems to handle different data processing tasks. In a cloud-is-a-must environment, new data architecture can streamline the business. For starters, your business can connect existing data to cloud applications.
Seeing without a spreadsheet
With all eyes focused on these new challenges, IT architects are looking to move their eyes off outdated and cumbersome spreadsheets. You probably know these spreadsheets: those endless rows of data that show your software instances running on premises and in the cloud.
A new dashboard puts that info into an easily-digestible dashboard can show you what software you are running on and off your cloud and help sure that your deployment is in line with your investment. You can also see what versions you are running to ensure you are ahead of the latest security vulnerabilities. The dashboard can also suggest new and different cloud-based services to bolsters your investment.
That’s thanks to cognitive capabilities that can help you make those decisions. See how to make smart moves with IBM Product Insights.  And help free up your time to tackle shadow IT, IoT and big data challenges.
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Quelle: Thoughts on Cloud