Five Key Cloud Challenges for CIOs in 2024

Thomas de Klerk and Erik Sackman participated in the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference. They share five themes that were discussed at the event, which together represent key challenges for organizations in the cloud field in 2024.

Vision: how does a cloud migration contribute to business goals?

“One of the most common missteps is that a cloud strategy is quite often confused with an implementation plan,” Erik said. “A plan is drawn up to migrate to the cloud, but a vision is missing: why is this actually important for the organization? How does such a migration contribute to achieving business objectives?”

Another strategic pitfall, according to Erik, is the idea that all the benefits of the cloud (such as cost savings and scalability) are automatically achieved by simply moving applications to the cloud: “What we see in practice is that it is actually important to evaluate per application or workload whether a migration to the cloud is the right choice and how best to go about it. We therefore help organizations develop a clear vision and roadmap for their cloud journey, and modernize their application landscape to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by cloud. In doing so, we look not only at the technological aspects, but also at the impact on processes, people and the organization as a whole.”

Data sovereignty: where is data kept and who has access?

A growing concern for many organizations is data sovereignty, or the issue of jurisdiction and access to data in the cloud. Thomas: “With the introduction of privacy laws such as the AVG and increasing geopolitical tensions, it is becoming increasingly important to keep a grip on data. It is important to know where data resides and who has access to it. Organizations need to look critically at the location of data centers, applicable laws and the ability to move or retrieve data if the need arises.”

So when considering a cloud migration, it is important to consider not only technical aspects: “We always recommend that specific requirements be tested against applicable laws and regulations. Here we look not only at the technical possibilities, but also at the legal and compliance aspects.”

Sustainability: how big is our carbon footprint?

Another aspect that will receive increasing attention in decisions around cloud use in 2024 is sustainability. “With the growing demand for computing power and storage capacity in the cloud, we are seeing significant impacts on energy consumption and carbon emissions,” Thomas said. “Organizations are increasingly being challenged on their responsibility to make sustainable choices and reduce their carbon footprint. As an organization, you can consciously choose cloud providers that are committed to green energy and efficient data centers, or critically examine the need to put certain data or applications in the cloud. What also helps is applying automatic scaling mechanisms, removing unused resources and opting for energy-efficient techniques such as serverless computing.”

Platform engineering: how do we manage complexity?

Gartner predicts that by 2024 it will become increasingly challenging to develop and manage software in an efficient and scalable way. Erik: “This is mainly due to the increasing demand for new applications and services, combined with the growing complexity of IT infrastructures.”

Thomas adds that platform engineering offers a solution to this: “Platform engineering is all about creating a standardized and automated platform on which applications can be built, tested and deployed. This platform is like an abstraction layer between the underlying infrastructure and the applications. Teams can focus on creating value for the business without having to worry about infrastructure complexity.”

Resources: where do we get the resources?

Another consequence of the growing complexity of the cloud is that midsize organizations in particular lack the resources to bring all the necessary knowledge and skills in-house, according to Gartner. Thomas: “Larger companies can have their own platform teams, but for midsize organizations that is often not feasible. We therefore apply the principles of platform engineering in our Managed Cloud Platform Services: everything development teams need to build and run software in production. In this, we use automated processes, self-service capabilities and a high degree of standardization, removing as much generic complexity as possible from teams. This allows organizations to focus on the core of their business and innovate faster.”