Interop: How AIOps Can Improve a Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Strategy

As organizations look to implement hybrid and multi-cloud operations, there is often a missing piece, according to Roy Illsley, chief analyst at Omdia.

In a session on June 15 at the Interop Digital IT Automation virtual event, Illsley outlined what AIOps— artificial intelligence for IT operations—is and how it can improve hybrid and multi-cloud adoption. According to Illsley, over the course of the last 12 to 18 months, organizations have shifted to being digitally focused, and the digital economy has thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Unfortunately, what we haven't had a chance to do during this pandemic is transform our IT operations teams to match the evolution or revolution that's happened within the business," he said. "AIOps, I believe, is a way that organizations can adopt tools and processes to address meeting this gap that exists between what the business is wanting to do and how it can support it and drive it in the future."

Defining AIOps for Hybrid and Multi-Cloud

When it comes to hybrid and multi-cloud IT deployments, a key challenge many organizations face is visibility.

Many organizations realize that they're actually operating in silos, according to Illsley. As such, they're only seeing part of the picture, and they need help breaking the silos down to free up information flows so that people can understand what's going on.

Illsley said AIOps is an approach that can help remove silos by correlating data and identifying trends and anomalies. With an AIOps approach, it's possible to push out actionable information to teams that can actually implement changes.

While there are multiple areas of IT where AIOps can be applied, in particular, Illsley sees it being useful for cloud computing. According to Omdia, cloud computing use expanded from running 25% of all workloads in 2019 to 35% at the end of 2020.

In addition, hybrid cloud is now the most popular type of cloud computing deployment for enterprise customers, he said. Hybrid cloud is gaining the most traction because enterprises see it as the best of both worlds, providing cloud computing economics along with the privacy and control of on-premises infrastructure, Illsley said.

AIOps Is a Fast Growing Sector

AIOps is one of the fastest growing sectors in the management space. According to Omdia's forecast, it's going to be worth $2.3 billion globally by 2024, which is a big gain over the $913 million the AIOps market was worth at the end of 2020.

Different industry verticals will embrace AIOps at different rates, with Illsley forecasting that healthcare with be a leading market segment, followed by media and entertainment.

Overall, Illsley emphasized that there is a clear need for organizations to have the tools and technologies needed to have visibility into operations across cloud deployments. In his view, AIOps can add value to existing tools an organization has, helping employees see information and come to shared conclusions.

"AIOps, at its heart, is a technology that will deliver observability," he said. "It will enable IT operations to make smarter decisions faster, more accurately, but it will not be a silver bullet."