Make 2023 the year of optimizing cloud computing.

It's Amazon re: Invent week and time to prepare your cloud strategy for the rest of the year. Ideally, people will start to think differently and start using cloud computing more efficiently.



I've been taught to search for trends in technology. Throughout my various jobs as a CTO, where you are required to make predictions about which technologies would be crucial, particularly the timing of when to make investments and what those investments should be, I created this survival approach.

It doesn't matter if you run a genuine technology business (like the majority of my employers did), a services business, a long-established firm, or a startup. Everyone is trying to make sense of everything. Professional skill is knowing which concepts are emerging, which concepts will be important, and when that relevance will occur.

This week's Amazon re: Invent conference, sometimes known as "Cloud Computing Woodstock," will include many announcements, many of which you'll find interesting. should take into account when you search for patterns. By speaking with Amazon CEO Adam Selipsky, David Vellante of SiliconAngle does an excellent job of analyzing the preshow revelations.

[Also on InfoWorld: SQL's ability to streamline API access]

Yet in the days to come, we'll hear a lot more from Amazon and other cloud computing service providers. A few significant data points will result from it, which must be taken into account while thinking about macro patterns or emergent patterns in general.

I believe we can make out some new micropatterns rising above and beyond the press and show noise. Once these patterns establish a theme, micropatterns start to appear. For instance, the emphasis on cloud operations is intensifying (clouds). A micropattern is this. Many micropatterns, like AIops and observability to enable cloud ops, are also accelerating. Naturally, there may be further sub-micropatterns on top of the micropatterns, and so on.

What new macro patterns might we expect to see in 2023?

I hinted at it last week, but 2023 will probably be more about practical ideas. The key to maximizing the benefit of cloud technology—or any technology, for that matter—is planning and strategy. This macro pattern's name, if I were to give it one, would be "optimization."

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As we're seeking cloud setups that do more than simply "work," we've discussed architectural optimization extensively here. With the least amount of money spent, we want to give the business the greatest value. Hence, we want to use finos methods and technologies to optimize cloud costs in the same way. Corporate data optimization appears to be a trend that will also emerge in 2023. These might be the results of the trends we saw at re: Invent this week.

The majority of this "optimization" rhetoric is motivated by the fact that many businesses have had less-than-stellar cloud computing ROI, and it does not appear to correlate with spending. Indeed, we observe identical-sized. Businesses that invest about the same amount in digital transformation, cloud computing migration, and other modernization projects have vastly varied outcomes. Some businesses discover good commercial value. Some experience negative value and come away from their cloud computing endeavors with nothing. Investors, board members, and executives are beginning to query.

Therefore, it's safe to assume that many of the overall micropatterns for 2023 will place a greater emphasis on optimization: optimization of cloud computing architectures, cloud spending, data, security, AI systems, etc.—anywhere we're attempting to make things more valuable for the business, as opposed to simply throwing money at technologies that may or may not work in an optimized manner.

This, in my opinion, signals a return to utilizing cloud computing resources more prudently. But, there will be challenges along the road. I'll mention two.

First of all, the majority of individuals that deal with cloud-based systems have little to no knowledge of how to optimize anything, much less modern technology. There is no fundamental understanding of how to utilize any technology's advantages to increase business value. Making a business case, which involves selling a strategy internally, is a common practice, but it's not obvious whether there will ever be an accurate way to determine the value being provided to the organization and what to do if the ROI is low.

Second, optimization requires self-evaluation and self-reflection, and some of these activities will reveal that leaders made poor choices. Realistic evaluations will be unsettling if you were the one who made those poor choices. Many will likely be used against them or neglected in the name of careers, in my opinion. I don't have any simple solutions, but I can attest from personal experience that this is a frequent problem.

Lastly, resist the urge to fling tools at this. The majority of operations management technologies today, such as finos and AIops, all boast about offering optimization analytics. The goal is to use a program to automatically optimize cloud prices, cloud operations, etc. Although tools are a vital component of optimization, strategy, methods, and measurements should be decided upon by the leadership rather than being dictated by them.

In terms of how we handle cloud technology and how we better connect it to the company, I'm kind of pleased with this macro pattern of optimization. I'm not naive, so I realize that this will be another hurdle for IT, but it has a lot of potential.