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Four cloud-computing predictions for 2022 and beyond

The year 2021 was a march of the workloads. In 2022, they’re spreading their wings.

In 2021, the migration of IT workloads to the cloud that began in 2020 continued. This mass migration hasn’t slowed because moving workloads to the cloud is less like a flock of geese flying south when the going gets rough and more like the deliberate march of a thousand penguins. Many workloads that organizations migrate to cloud platforms are chosen precisely because they aren’t nimble—they can’t “fly.” Not yet at least. But once they get to the cloud, you can teach them. While many of us at Slalom expect “the march of the workloads” to continue into 2022, we also agree with cloud experts that the years ahead will bring increased investment in optimizing cloud environments as opposed to just establishing them. Cloud optimization initiatives will be based on an ever-expanding range of organizational priorities, from cost optimization to sustainability.

Altogether, increased cloud adoption, greater investment in cloud optimization initiatives, and what cloud experts also predict will be more widespread use of modern technologies—technologies that are enhanced or enabled by the cloud—will contribute to an upsurge in public cloud spending in the next few years. By 2026, Gartner predicts that public cloud spending will exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spending, up from less than 17% in 2021. As Adam Selipsky stressed in his first AWS re:Invent keynote as the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), today is still just the beginning of cloud computing. But we might add: tomorrow is right around the corner.

As cloud computing moves closer to ubiquity in 2022 and beyond, organizations that want to stay at the cutting edge of the cloud should consider these four trends:

More widespread utilization of cloud-native technologies such as serverless and containers.
More widespread utilization of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) in the cloud.
More widespread utilization of Internet of Things (IoT) services and edge computing.
Greater prioritization of sustainability and social impact associated with / enabled by cloud computing and enterprise IT.

When Slalom says experts predict these four trends, we mean it. Each trend we break down in this article is supported by at least one piece of in-depth analysis published in 2021 by authors from Forrester, International Data Corporation (IDC), and Tech Republic, and Dr. Werner Vogels, the VP and CTO at Amazon.com. By reading our analysis, you’ll also get our point of view as the first-ever AWS National System Integrator (NSI) Partner of the Year in the US, an honor that Slalom received during AWS re:Invent 2021. Throughout this article, you’ll be able to find highlights of Slalom’s presence at re:Invent and relevant updates from AWS re:Invent 2021. Enjoy!

Below: During the Global Partner Summit Keynote at AWS re:Invent 2021, Doug Yeum shares a quote from Slalom’s Mike Cowden.