In 2019, ISVs will see businesses taking new approaches and continuing to evolve their cloud strategies. Here are five cloud predictions that ISVs need to factor into their decision making and that are trends to watch in the upcoming year.
Prediction #1: Organizations will begin building their own internal certifications
In our research shown in Cloud Catalog, adoption of multi-cloud and hybrid cloud deployments continues to grow. Organizations are customizing public cloud platforms, deploying their own software, and customizing their technology stack with their internal processes in an effort to develop innovative technologies.
Every path towards technology development will differ and there will be a need for both standard and customized training that caters to specific job roles within organizations. Leadership will want to ensure that new employees onboard and hit the ground running and we predict that organizations will begin offering internal certifications to gauge existing skills and assess understanding of the existing technology stack.
Prediction #2: Organizations will approach employee development from a quantifiable perspective
A skills gap continues to persist, costing organizations $258 million per year according to Rackspace. Organizations must work harder to build and retain the skills of existing talent so they can build or maintain a competitive edge in their respective industry.
To track skills growth, organizational leaders will invest in a new breed of learning solutions that track skills growth, measure effort and offer assessments to gauge capability and opportunity. Armed with the data, organizations will have the opportunity to assign context-aware training and assess employee performance to better prepare for upcoming projects.
Prediction #3: Organizations will appoint Digital Skills Officers to manage their team’s technical skills
In our discussions with customers, they frequently share a disconnect between their existing training program and the skills their teams need in order to be successful. Often, training is offered without structure and does not align with technical goals.
We predict that organizations will appoint Digital Skills Officers to help manage their team’s technical skills in an effort to create structure in their training efforts. Digital Skills Officers work closely with the office of the CTO and CIO to align training efforts with technical roadmaps, focusing on contextualized training to drive successful learning outcomes.
Prediction #4: Kubernetes will contribute to increased multi-cloud adoption
More organizations are adopting containers so their software can be migrated quickly and reliably between computing environments. Containerization at scale is possible through orchestration tools, led by Kubernetes, an open source tool known for its robustness in deploying and managing container-based applications.
Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services recently began offering Kubernetes services, making it easier for organizations to deploy their applications across multiple cloud platforms and implement multi-cloud strategies. In fact, our research through Cloud Catalog confirms this, showing an increase in job postings that mention Kubernetes alongside AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
Prediction #5: Ansible will overtake Puppet and Chef as the preferred DevOps automation tool
DevOps continues to interest organizations looking to streamline their innovation efforts. Within these efforts is a continued push towards automation, which allows organizations to keep up with business demand.
Among technical practitioners, Ansible’s DevOps automation is easier to use than Chef and Puppet due to its simpler configuration language and its agentless deployment. According to our research, organizational demand for Ansible is rising and we predict that its ease of use, along with its recent addition to IBM’s portfolio by way of its Red Hat acquisition, will drive its preference as the preferred DevOps automation tool. 
