THE FUTURE OF CLOUD COMPUTING

EMERGING TRENDS EXPECTED TO SHAPE UAE’S CLOUD TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN 2023

As the cloud technology wave continues to sweep across industries regionally on the back of an everevolving digital-centric consumer base, players in the cloud computing space are racing towards adopting value-driven solutions in a bid to grow their market share.

According to hybrid data cloud company Cloudera, this has resulted in a dramatic shift occasioned by emerging consumer preferences and trends shaping markets.

In recognition that technology and innovation, especially in the cloud computing industry, remain pivotal to the growth and success of many organisations, Cloudera has reiterated the need to adopt and integrate emerging trends as part of the organisation’s digital strategy.

“Cloud technology remains a top priority in every organisation because consumers have become tech-savvy and expect solution providers to lead by example. This has, in turn, led to an increase in the adoption of cloud technology for various applications, including data management. Therefore, organisations must keep an eye on new trends and innovations to help them deliver the right solutions across industries,” said Karim Azar, Regional Vice President of Middle East & Turkey.

As the market prepares to usher in 2023, the industry should align its strategies with new trends and consumer preferences in the cloud technology space even as they plan to remain competitive in its respective strongholds; expect the development of the following trends:

1. Adoption of the Multi-Cloud

The mass adoption of cloud computing is a crucial driver of the most transformative technological trends. The industry is expected to witness multiple businesses leveraging cloud services to access newer, innovative technologies and build efficiencies in their operations and processes in the upcoming year.

While 2022 has been a great year for Hybrid clouds, 2023 expects businesses to diversify their services across cloud portals. Adopting multi-cloud services enables organisations to expand their horizons regarding agility and security. Moreover, the multi-cloud technology prevents users from getting tied down to one cloud ecosystem.

“Adopting hybrid and multi-cloud services provides several benefits in terms of flexibility, ease of use, and even cost savings,” Karim Azar, Regional Vice President – Middle East & Turkey at Cloudera. Sixtynine per cent of business executives are convinced that their enterprises require a comprehensive data strategy to succeed. However, only 35 per cent believe that their current system sufficiently fulfils their requirements. Industry experts have cited the ability to manage seasonal demands, support special projects, and identify and organisation renegade workloads as some of the key reasons hybrid and multi-cloud services are necessary for businesses.

2. Higher Funding For Cloud Security & Durability

Since businesses will be looking to adopt multiple cloud services for their data, security and longevity will be crucial. Although migrating across clouds exposes companies to myriad growth opportunities, it also significantly increases their vulnerability to cyber threats. Businesses will, therefore, need also to shore up their investment in triedand-tested technologies to help them safeguard their data from any potential threats online.

3. Upskilling for digital transformation success and business survival

The global tech industry remains amidst a severe talent and skills shortage, impacting the ability of businesses to see through their digital transformation projects and endangering their survival.

With a restricted pool of graduates with specialist data skills, having individuals with suitable skill sets is crucial. With AI and machine learning (ML) taking over everyday timeconsuming tasks, employees can shift their focus onto complex tasks that require human intelligence.

Going ahead, business investment in upskilling and reskilling programmes will be key to unlocking future growth and development. Complementary to this are prospects who are increasingly receptive to these programmes. Cloudera’s Limitless: The Positive Power of AI report found that most (80%) of knowledge workers were comfortable taking on new roles thanks to advances in AI/ML and data analytics, making their job easier.

4. Digital Transformation to Save Costs

Instigated by cost-cutting strategies, the priority for most businesses will likely be cost-efficient data security strategies. This includes increased use of Artificial Intelligence, and Predictive Technology crafted to identify potential security threats in advance. Finding opportunities for monetary savings offers the benefit of reducing costs, but more importantly, it enables a reallocation of budgets towards innovation projects.

REINING IN CLOUD CHAOS

AT ITS ANNUAL USER EVENT HELD IN BARCELONA LAST MONTH, VMWARE HAS URGED ITS CUSTOMERS TO ARCHITECT A CLOUD-SMART STRATEGY. KIT COLBERT, CTO OF VMWARE, EXPLAINS HOW COMPANIES CAN MOVE FROM CLOUD CHAOS TO CLOUD SMART.

What does it mean to be cloud smart?

Cloud smart means you can choose where you want to run an application. And some technologies are helping you to accelerate that choice. In order to fully realize that vision, and it is a vision that we need to work through, we will need to enable these high-level services available on-prem, and sovereign clouds - wherever a customer might want to run an application.

Your CEO has commented that ML will be a key tech in the coming years. How are you leveraging ML?

There are three ways that we’re supporting ML today. So there are products that support customers running their own ML and have ML built into them to make them smarter. And then how we use ML internally, to optimize our business operations and various things. So the first category is really about the capabilities we provide that enable customers to create ML solutions. vSphere is a great example, and we have partnered heavily with Nvidia to virtualize GPU, making it much easier for customers to run ML-based workloads and other things.

And then the second category, we’re starting to enrich many of our products with ML. A case is vRealize, which is focused on how to enable a system to auto-configure itself. The first use case we targeted was vSAN which has a ton of knobs and dials you can change. But the problem is that it takes a Ph.D. in this stuff to understand how to do that properly. So most customers leave the defaults as is. However, if you properly optimize vSAN options for your workload, you can get dramatic performance increases. So what this vRealize AI is doing for vSphere vSAN is looking at the behavior of the applications running on it, and then figuring out based on the ML model we have, what are the optimal settings for vSAN for that app.

Another example would be what we’re doing with what we call project Trinidad. So it’s still an internal project that we’re working on within the CTO’s office- we are looking for a service mesh where you have a bunch of pods talking to each other over the network. We can look at that network traffic and do advanced ML analysis to understand behavioral changes in that traffic. If there’s some behavior change, you can take an automated remediation process there. So again, we’re using ML to understand when problems occur.

VMware stated that many of its customers need help with cloud migration because replatforming takes time and is resource intensive. What kind of approach do you recommend?

We are not dogmatic about any one approach and want to support things across the spectrum. For us, it’s about providing more flexibility and choice. So typically speaking, if you want to move an app from on-prem to the cloud, you would have to do some refactoring or replatforming, right? But with us, you don’t have to; you can just do a simple migration. Life and shift that works for some customers may not work for others. So we’re not saying that lift and shift is the only thing to do it. We are giving customers a toolbox with a set of tools. And these tools give customers more options than they would have otherwise.

Do we need to worry about container security because they are very short-lived?

Some containers last a long time. There are multiple aspects of security - the supply chain security, which is very top-of-mind. If your supply chain has been compromised, you start moving like broken bits. The other aspect is that even if the container is short-lived, it’s very likely dealing with very sensitive data or data that has been covered under various regulatory compliance regulations. So you do want to be able to know, at runtime, whether there’s some problem or not because the security incidents and response are still very much applicable in the container world.

You are a bit late to come to the XDR party, which is already crowded. What makes you different?

You’re right; for us, the XDR space is still evolving. We’re part of the XDR Association, and some other efforts trying to drive standardization. I think the difference is that because we have all these other assets, we can get additional data points and insights that all these other players don’t. With the hypervisor, we live in a very special place where we can get tremendous insights into the behavior and so forth of an application or the underlying virtual hardware, wherever it may be. And so those extra pieces can really help.

THE PLANET OF APPS

PAUL WRIGHT, GENERAL MANAGER FOR WESTERN EUROPE AND MENAT AT APPSFLYER, ON HOW APP BRANDS CAN MAXIMISE SUCCESS WHEN UTILISING SUBSCRIPTION MODELS

The Middle East is one of the fastest-growing markets for mobile apps, with a burgeoning appetite for digital services in the region. With 91% of UAE organisations now offering customers an app, according to an AppsFlyer report, many are looking at utilising a subscription model. There’s good reason for this too — the demand for subscription models is high, with a phenomenal 6 billion installations globally between January 2021 and March 2022.

However, the big challenge is convincing users to stay and renew for the long term. To do this successfully, app marketers need a smart strategy, strong measurement and deep insights into their users. Only then can they increase reengagement numbers and enjoy ongoing value. There are a number of tools and methods available to support app marketers in creating a profitable subscription model.

Where’s the value in subscriptionbased apps?

Entertainment, health and fitness, dating, education, and gaming are all prevalent verticals for subscriptionbased apps — and they’re not the only ones. The common theme with these sectors is that users regularly consume content, for example with upgrades and new levels on gaming or education apps, or new workouts and recipes from health and fitness brands. Subscription models need to continually roll out new content to meet the demands of the paying customer.

And it’s the subscriptions that generate most of the revenue for these apps, with over fourfifths coming from subscription payments rather than one offbuys. It’s therefore vital that app brands secure loyalty by providing the content users want, boosting renewals and sign-ups.

The importance of event mapping

Event mapping can reveal strong user insights that enable marketers to tailor their strategies and deliver results. In-app events like content views and searches, free-trial details and lapsed subscriptions can all unlock vital information and insights that will help app brands understand their users, gain new subscribers and keep existing ones.

Tracking in-app events like these helps marketers understand how users interact with the mobile app at all stages and identify and address any friction points. For example, if users finish the free trial but don’t sign up, perhaps the subscription process could be smoothed out or streamlined.

Not only that, event mapping can help app brands create bespoke remarketing campaigns. A fitness app might notice that those who do four workouts a week tend to renew their subscriptions, for example. So, they can then focus their advertising on encouraging people to do four workouts as they’re likely to be engaged and renew subscriptions. The insights that event mapping unlocks allows app brands to boost subscribers and renewal rates.

Personalisation and custom content

It’s vital that app marketers personalise and streamline the user experience wherever possible. There are several tactics that can be used, including paid remarketing, push notifications, and deep linking.

Remarketing campaigns

Remarketing campaigns need to be focused and tailored if they are to be worth running. App marketers need to be crystal clear on their objectives — do they want to re-engage lapsed users or focus on keeping users? What audience segment are they targeting?

App marketers can use insights from users’ behaviours and the type of content that they have viewed in the past. They can then tailor the marketing campaign with similar content, hopefully leading to conversions. Campaigns must be thoroughly tested to ensure spend is targeted effectively.

Push notifications

These are another way to help boost engagement, and increase sign-ups and subscribers. They can bring new content to the attention of users, let them know about new types of content and remind them of goals, like achievement streaks or scores. Push notifications can also help to encourage users to complete a free trial, reminding them about offers that will run out. All of this entices users to spend more time using the app and can deliver better results. But it’s important not to overload the user with too many push notifications, and to make sure you’re giving users something of real value.

Deep linking

Deep linking is another handy tool which helps provide a better, more relevant and personalised user experience. For example, if someone on an entertainment app follows a link from an advert for a new event, the deep link will take the user directly to the specific event that was featured.

This tool is also helpful for getting recently lapsed users to re-engage. For example, if someone on an educational app is generally active, but hasn’t completed the most recent level, they can be targeted with a campaign promoting this level. If the user clicks on the link, they’re taken directly to the level yet to be completed, making it an extremely easy and smooth experience.

Maximising success

With the app business booming in the UAE, more and more companies will be opting for a subscription model. There are lots of ways for brands to build and keep subscribers, boosting profitability and helping them stay relevant to today’s digital-savvy consumers. The building blocks of success are extensive user measurement and insights. Only then can app marketers successfully personalise campaigns with targeted content, driving engagement and optimising conversions, renewals and revenue.