In an era of technology that’s charging forward faster than a whistling kettle reaching its boiling point, it’s nearly as hard to avoid pondering the future of our digital landscape as it is to resist a second cup of coffee. Much like brewing the perfect cuppa, this blog steeps itself around three essential components. 

So grab a cuppa, and let’s dive into predictions we have brewed for cloud, data centres, and edge infrastructure this year. 

Oh, the cloud! No, not those fluffy ones that cover the British skyline but the mighty digital ether that keeps our online world whirring. Is the future of this technology as changeable as our famously unpredictable British weather? If you’re familiar with my ramblings at the start of almost every Teams meeting, you know I have a knack for bringing up the weather – a fascinating medley of variety and chaos akin to a British potluck. 

Changes are happening to the clouds on the horizon, shifting in shape and size as infrastructure teams focus on streamlining and refactoring their cloud infrastructure. However, public cloud usage is now as common as the big brand coffee shop and their express machines. Cloud deployments often resemble an eager beaver’s dam, hastily put together to stop the flood of service requests using a mishmash of different services and features. Infrastructure teams now likely have to consider revisiting these rushed assemblies or architectural misfires, refining them to be more effective, hardy, and budget-friendly. 

Refactoring should prioritise cost-optimisation by pruning redundant, overbuilt, or idle cloud infrastructures. Think more about aligning it to the business’s needs rather than just aiming for 99.999% of everything!  

Data Centres – our unsung heroes, the thermos flask filled with our amazing digital coffee. They may not make headlines news like ChatGPT or Blockchain, but our tech-fuelled society would surely crumble without them. As these digital nerve centres continue evolving, we can expect them to become leaner, greener, and more efficient in dealing with our increasing hunger for data storage and quicker processing. 

Data Centre teams will need to incorporate cloud principles and move further away from those In-house ” Datacentres ” to more platform-based colocation providers. This trend, coupled with new ‘as-a-service’ models for physical infrastructure, is paving the way for cloud-like service-centricity and economic models even in on-premises infrastructure. 

I expect that what data centre infrastructure remains will all be managed via a cloud-based management system. Incorporating AI for management and monitoring. This is a great area where NLP technology can play a bit role in helping Infrastructure teams with their management duties.  

So expect Infrastructure teams to roll up their sleeves and move everything towards cloud-native infrastructure, migrating final workloads to colocation facilities or the edge and jumping on the ‘as-a-service’ bandwagon for physical infrastructure connected to smart management systems. 

Over in the application world, updates are coming out more frequently than cups of coffee in those express machines at the local services station on a Monday morning. Our favourite apps and platforms are being upgraded with ChatGPT-style NLP features. Further enhancements to AI and connectivity through 5G will bring a whirlwind of improvements to our office cubicles and field operations. 

These innovative application forces are shaking up the overall infrastructure architecture. Infrastructure teams find themselves in a situation akin to trying to brew a proper cup of coffee without hot water – ceaselessly tackling fresh and escalating demands to incorporate novel types of infrastructure into their existing ecosystem. These innovations range from edge infrastructure, designed for data-intensive tasks, to non-x86 architectures for specialist workloads, serverless edge architectures, and 5G mobile services. 

Let’s not forget about those elusive containers, the “Coffee bags” of the tech world if you will. Just as a Coffee bags bag neatly holds the fresh ground coffee for easy brewing, containers package up an application and all its dependencies into a single object. Their capacity to provide a consistent, reliable and reusable environment is as desirable as a “Kopi Luwak”. With containers, applications can run efficiently and seamlessly, regardless of the environment, much like a good cuppa, offering solace irrespective of the prevailing weather.  

The task for infrastructure professionals is akin to selecting the best coffee from a wall of options: evaluating alternatives with diligence, centring on their capability to manage, integrate, and transform amidst constraints on time, talent, and resources. Echoing Delory’s sentiments, “Don’t skedaddle back to traditional methods or solutions just because they’ve proven to be the cat’s whiskers in the past. Testing times call for innovation and the discovery of new solutions to cater to business demands.” Remember, a new brew might just be the cuppa you needed all along. 

In this day and age, organisations’ reliance on technology has skyrocketed, and it’s no longer a game solely for the few IT whizzes, propped up on caffeine, burning the midnight oil. 

Successful organisations will prioritise skill development above all, even with AI on that horizon! The skills deficit remains the most significant stumbling block to infrastructure modernisation initiatives, with numerous organisations finding it as challenging to recruit outside talent as getting a suntan in British during winter. Like a three-legged race, IT organisations won’t succeed unless they prioritise nurturing in-house talent. 

IT leaders must roll up their sleeves and put operational skills development at the top of their ‘to-do’ list this year, higher than even the kettle for the afternoon tea. It’s time to encourage Infrastructure professionals to swap their caps, taking on new roles such as site reliability engineers or subject matter expert consultants for developer teams and business units. Data centre and infrastructure teams must upgrade their automation and cloud skills in the coming years. It’s time to turn those ‘old dogs’ into ‘new tricks’ champions! 

Ah, the quintessential question – “What’s in it for me?” As British as discussing the weather or a good cuppa, we love knowing the benefits, don’t we? Let’s spill the tea, then. 

Investing in the evolution of your cloud, data centre, and edge infrastructure can yield enormous gains. 

• Cost Efficiency: Streamlining and optimising your cloud infrastructure helps you trim the fat and save on unnecessary costs, just like finding a cheeky discount on your favourite digestive biscuits. 

• Resilience: Much like a sturdy umbrella against our notorious British drizzle, refactoring improves your business resilience, ensuring your infrastructure can weather digital disruptions. 
• Performance: Similar to upgrading from a sputtering old car to a sleek new motor, modernising infrastructure can greatly enhance performance, speed, and processing power. 
• Scalability: Embracing new application architectures and fresh infrastructure types allows your business to scale as quickly as a rumour in a village pub. 
• Green Impact: It’s like swapping your plastic bags for a reusable tote. Making your data centres more energy-efficient saves pennies and reduces your carbon footprint. 
• Skill Development: Prioritising skill growth is a win-win scenario – it helps your organisation fill the skills gap while providing your team with new opportunities for professional development. It’s like teaching the old dog new tricks and a new dog show routine! 

• Future-Ready: All these steps ensure your business is prepared for future tech advancements. It’s like knowing the twists and turns of the next episode of “EastEnders” before it airs. 

In simpler terms, it’s like waking up to the rich aroma of freshly brewed Kopi Luwak coffee – indulging in its luxurious taste and getting that perfect kick-start to your day – without worrying about the caffeine jitters. Quite the brew-tiful scenario, wouldn’t you agree?