Goodbye to the cloud debate; Hello to analytics for actionable insights

It’s still amazing to me that as each year comes to a close, I have the same thoughts I had the year before – how could another year have come and gone? But with each New Year, new and exciting opportunities arise, and for me 2015 will be an especially interesting year for virtualization and the cloud.

After reflecting on last year’s industry predictions from the likes of Gartner, and seeing them come to light as the race between private and public cloud offerings became a reality, I foresee the following four trends taking center stage in 2015.

1. The benefits of hybrid cloud will be realized.

Forget public versus private cloud environments – that is so 2014! As we enter the New Year, expect to watch the two entities combine, meaning businesses will need to shift their focus to the reality of the hybrid cloud. No longer juggling between public and private, businesses will leverage a hybrid cloud infrastructure to create a uniform interface for both internal and external resources.

2. Say “goodbye” to cloud brokerages.

And say hello to cloud management tools! Historically, these tools have been very expensive, but now more tactical tools are coming to light. Businesses will leverage different platforms like VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, Azure, and MANY more to meet their business needs, then layer cloud management tools to normalize the interface.

3. It’s time to fix virtual machine (VM) sprawl.

2014 was the year businesses realized VM sprawl was a problem as IT departments were dealing with growing virtual environments that lacked the ability to effectively reclaim and redeploy wasted resources. In 2015, it will be time to do something about it. No longer can environments survive solely by throwing more resources at the problem, as businesses will eventually find themselves up against a budget wall. Managers and administrators will be able to take action to remedy VM sprawl to reclaim and redeploy those wasted resources to put them where they’re needed most.

4. Analytics for actionable insights.

Analytics have always been an important way to report back on what’s working (or what isn’t) for companies across all departments. In 2015, companies will need a way to view ALL of their data, and one way to do that is by leveraging their backup data, which uniquely spans across all applications and environments. Through these analytics, the company can gain business insights that drive actions. Hello, Big Data!

While we look back and reflect on 2014, it’s clear that we’ve come a long way. However, as we look forward to what 2015 may bring, we can see that we still have a LONG way to go. I say – bring it on!

Robbie Wright is Senior Product Marketing Manager for CommVault and a VMware vExpert. In this role, Robbie focuses on Virtualization and Cloud solutions and is a veteran in the storage, virtualization, and cloud market for more than 11 years. With former roles at both Dell and Rackspace, he has extensive experience with VMware, Hyper-V, and OpenStack, and is a frequent contributor to many types of social media. Robbie holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.