Issue 46 Jan 2018 Dear Readers, Greetings from Swan Solutions! It's has been more than a decade since cloud computing became part of IT's strategic discussions. Be that as it may, every single conversation that we have with the tech leaders even today involves some form of cloud. They passionately share stories on how cloud transformed the way they consume technology, how it fuels their digital journeys, and occasionally, how badly they want to exit out of it. Cloud has become IT's lingua franca! In 2018, we see no reason for this 'cloud appetite' to go down. Infact, IT decision makers are expecting an exciting year for the cloud ecosystem, as technologies like AI, containers and IoT get widely adopted. We will see these techs complementing each other to derive better results, cut costs and improve efficiencies. Multi-cloud and hybrid cloud will be the way forward. No smart business would want to miss out on this new cloud wave. Regards, C.E.O Tech Trend 2018: Where is the Cloud Market Headed? Is cloud an underutilized computing model? Yes, massively, believe pundits. Primarily because, the vast potential of cloud goes beyond basic computing and storage in someone else's highly virtualized and highly available data centers, argue experts. The number of organizations that have optimized the cloud to generate better business outcomes is still a small majority. However, the pace of change in the cloud space will be unparalleled in 2018. According to Forrester, we'll pass that magic threshold in 2018 where more than 50% of global enterprises will rely at least on public cloud platform to drive digital transformation and delight customers. Here are a few key trends that will impact the cloud landscape this year. Kubernetes and container orchestration Containerization gained prominence in 2015 and is now a mainstream technology for enterprises. In the last one year or so, the industry realized the need for an orchestration layer to successfully deploy containers in production. That's when Kubernetes entered the enterprises. Today, it is the most widely used orchestration tool, with all the major public cloud vendors announcing support. Expect to see this space picking up great impetus this year. AI and Machine Learning Enterprises have been using AI in different ways, but in 2018, machine learning and AI will have a more meaningful role in managing the complexity associated with cloud. Machine-driven knowledge and automation is predicted to enhance various aspects like monitoring, incident management, cost management and configuration management in the cloud environment. Multi-clouds IDC predicted that over 85 percent of enterprise IT organizations will commit to multicloud architectures by 2018. Enterprises will readily distribute their applications over multiple clouds, by choosing the best cloud that meets their needs. Fear of vendor lock-in, the need to reduce cost, bring in more efficiency and other factors will fuel this growth towards multicloud environments Expert Tip Multi-cloud Strategy: Getting It Right Multicloud model is an unavoidable path that organizations have to go down. Nevertheless, managing a multicloud environment calls for renewed management strategies, new tools and a different approach. Artificial Intelligence is proving to be an excellent tool for IT leaders to cut the complexity associated with multi-cloud management, automate performance optimization, and increase security and governance. AI and machine learning helps in removing repetition in a multi-cloud environment, and ensure cost optimization. Invest more on areas such as security, compliance and governance, considering the increasingly distributed and complex cloud environments. Recognition Swan Wins Best FSI Partner Award FY-17 from HPE At a recently held FSI Vertical Partner Meet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise recognized Swan Solutions as their Best Partner HPE Aruba FY-2017. Click here to take a closer look at our Award Trophy Free Downloads KAYAK: Your Own Digital Travel Agent KAYAK saves you the time and effort of searching hundreds of travel sites to book the perfect flight, hotel or car hire, and saves money with mobile-only rates and private deals. It lets you organise all your travel plans in one place including free flight status updates, airport terminal maps and security wait times. Missive: Email Marries Chat Do you think emails are too slow for internal discussions? Missive brings threaded chats to your inbox, to chat with your teammates, share attachments, assign tasks and even collaboratively write emails. Allows you to archive and snooze chats, saves huge amount of time and puts an end to the long chain of internal mails. Quiz Would you like to win a Free Movie Ticket ? Answer a few simple questions and send us the reply. In case of more than one correct entry, winner will be chosen by a draw. Swan is a 26+ year old, IT infrastructure and facilities management company providing state-of-the-art IT solutions to large and medium enterprises Swan Solutions & Services (P) Ltd - 404 T-Square, 4th Floor, Saki Vihar Road, Andheri East, Above Kavish Ford Showroom, Mumbai 400 072; Tel. 022-28034088 ; Email : enquiry@swansol.com Website : www.swansol.com