The state of the cloud heading into 2019

As far as cutting-edge technology goes, the cloud could almost be considered an old timer at this point. It's been around the block more than a few times and just about every organization uses it in some capacity.

That doesn't mean the cloud industry is slowing down or that the technology is growing stagnant. On the contrary, big things are always afoot when it comes to the cloud. Looking toward the new year, what trends will dominate the cloud landscape and what do business leaders need to know to make the most of this always-exciting technology in 2019?

Hybrid IT and cloud model continues to gather steam

The idea of a wholly on-premises IT environment is something of an antiquated idea at this point. Sure, there may be a few holdouts, but most organizations have come around to the benefits of migrating at least some of their workloads and systems to the cloud. According to a recent IDG study, the average organization operates nearly half of its IT environment in the cloud.

It's a fair bet that these trends will continue unabated in 2019 as more business leaders recognize the significant advantages to embracing managed IT services. For one, there's no expensive equipment to purchase, install, configure and maintain on a daily basis. Businesses can save a bundle by trading in the major operational costs of on-premises IT management to a subscription-based managed service.

The cloud also provides IT scalability that's needed to support expanding businesses. As your market footprint grows and more IT resources and personnel are needed to maintain that rate of the development, cloud services can quickly scale up your compute and processing capabilities. That's just not possible in a more traditional IT arrangement.

Let's not forget the built-in redundancy and resilience provided by the cloud, especially this time of year. Winter storms can easily affect local network performance, potentially even knocking your systems offline. A hybrid IT approach insulates businesses against such costly instances of downtime by incorporating geographically distributed failover sites to keep everything up and running, even when disaster strikes.

More business-critical applications will move to the cloud

For a while now, accepted wisdom dictated that companies maintain their most crucial applications in-house and sometimes even on-site, while moving less essential workloads to the cloud. According to Forrester Research, look for businesses to do some course correcting on that front in 2019. The analyst firm expects more companies to modernize core applications and software platforms - including databases, inventories and payment transaction systems - by incorporating cloud technology.

In some instances, companies will outright replace their legacy systems with cloud-based solutions, while others will have cloud technology take on a more supportive role. Either way, the cloud will play a critical part in the operation of many important business processes moving forward.

Cloud migration is never truly finished. There are always new platforms to take advantage of and ways to further optimize your deployments. To make sure you get the most out of the latest cloud technology, work with managed IT service providers that have a long track record of success.

TEKConn is the premier purveyor of IT managed services in the New York area. To take your first foray into the cloud or find out how to improve your existing cloud environment, contact us today.