By Pankaj Kitchlu, Systems Engineering Director, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks
The recent dynamic socioeconomic climate has had a long-term influence on cloud usage. Companies accelerated their digital transformation in response to a worldwide pandemic and stay-at-home requirements. It involved transitioning to cloud-based software to serve remote employees and rapidly launching new cloud services to retain clients.
As we approach the end of 2022, digital transformation activities continue to accelerate, and if cloud computing trends are any indicator, there will be no slowing down. India’s digital transformation is expected to be worth US$1 trillion by 2025. As per, National Informatics Centre (NIC) , India’s average data consumption per user per month is expected to increase from 0.8 GB in 2015 to 17 GB in 2022. NASSCOM predicts cloud computing has the potential to transform the Indian economy technologically and make it more resilient and inclusive as it competes to become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2026.
To meet the needs of this evolving future, service providers will need to focus on new business models that reflect the need to reinvent network automation and cloud-delivered services to drive agility, seamless connectivity, and assured service experiences while also fully embracing sustainability as a key priority for the future of networking. As service providers transform their network infrastructure, operations and services experience to meet future needs, here are a few key trends we expect will take shape in the year ahead. Here are some of the top cloud trends for 2023:
Metro networks will accelerate their much-needed transformation momentum
Metro networks are the future of new profitable and innovative services, and they are undergoing a much-needed transformation by operators. Emerging as a new solution category, reimagined metro networks – known as cloud metros – are built with operations, systems, and architecture attributes that are fundamentally different from the traditional metro.
With emerging 5G and edge services increasing the need for these reimagined metro architectures, we will see a once-in-a-generation opportunity for service providers. With this metro transformation, operators will reinvent metro networks to fuel sustainable business growth and strengthen their position as key drivers of the emerging digital ecosystem.
Automation will transition from on-prem to as-a-Service consumption model centered around AIOps
AIOps is no longer an afterthought, according to a recent report by International Data Corporation (IDC). Indian businesses are now turning to AIOps to assist them in effectively managing their infra operations by removing the underlying complexity and concentrating on delivering business results to improve their strategic decision-making procedures. AIOps offers a practical means of putting the hype surrounding AI and big data into practice. AIOps is a way to help you scale your IT operations to meet future challenges, making Digital Transformation as a strategic enabler of business growth. This includes streamlining operations, boosting productivity, and improving security.
The need to fundamentally reinvent how network automation is deployed and consumed will take shape, and the transition of network automation as a cloud-delivered and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled model will emerge. Operators will start adopting the automation as-a-Service model to achieve business outcomes that deliver faster time-to-market and reduced operational complexity and costs.
Hyperscalers and CSPs lock horns
Collaboration between cloud hyperscalers and communication service providers (CSPs) will expand, which may also bring increasing unrest for CSPs who are not sharing equally in the partnership. Saddled with the Covid hangover affecting today’s supply chain, alongside record global inflation and increased infrastructure costs, some CSPs could see this deeply affect their already strained margins. To avoid this, and increase their portion of the profit pool, we will see CSPs actively invest in establishing a defined demarcation between hyperscalers and their own network to monetize differentiated networking services (e.g., network slicing, QoS, latency, capacity, service assurance, etc.) and increase their position in the value chain for both consumers and application developers alike.
Adoption of private 5G will gather momentum
With a CAGR of 39.7% between 2021 and 2028, the global market for 5G would reach USD 14.28 billion by 2028. The demand for stable low-latency network connectivity and greater security for critical applications might be attributed to this development. Most new enterprise mobile networks will be on private 5G in 2023. In addition to service providers, we will see more cloud providers entering the private 5G market equipped with fast and standardized delivery of private networks.
Security, as well as AI/ML, will still be top of the agenda for enterprises embarking on private 5G. With the focus on automation and cloud-delivered services, new technologies like ORAN will start to feature in the private 5G discussions between operators, enterprises and vendors. We will see more trials for private 5G with the approach towards Wi-Fi/wireless convergence and Wi-Fi for indoors and wireless for outdoors. In line with this we will see both cloud and service providers accelerate the adoption of 400G by increasingly seeking specialized silicon to tackle specific roles in the network. Moreover, future-looking network operators will prepare for the next big increase in demand by choosing platforms capable of supporting a seamless transition to 800G when needed. Enterprises will look at having a single pane of glass dashboard for managing their overall converged network. We will see the emergence of different ecosystems to achieve this.
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