In 2023, organizations will care more about measuring cloud sustainability than they have historically, according to Deloitte's Chief Cloud Strategy Officer David Linthicum.

He detailed his predictions for the cloud industry and how it will intersect with environmental sustainability over an email-conducted interview.

SDxCentral: How do you expect cloud sustainability to evolve in 2023, and what is driving that evolution?

Linthicum:  While cloud sustainability goals weren’t really on the industry’s radar five years ago, now enterprises know cloud computing is substantially greener than enterprise computing thanks to the benefit of the cloud computing model, automation, and overall greener technology.

What’s changing regarding sustainability goals is the increased emphasis on observability, monitoring, and sustainability scores with things like checks on software code, optimizing existing IT, and making applications easier and more power-consumption friendly. Other than helping save the planet, having a higher ESG [environmental, social, and governance] score – what investors and other stakeholders look at related to sustainability efforts – can lead to positive business growth and investment.

To advance sustainability and environmental strategies, think about next-generation cloud technology services. Respondents adopting cloud-enabled technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), blockchain, augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR), and quantum achieve significantly higher positive outcomes around sustainability and environmental issues. This high correlation could be from the fact that next-generation tech adopters tend to be futuristic and forward-looking and are thus more mindful of climate challenges and more willing to address them.

SDxCentral: What impact will the shift toward multicloud environments have in 2023?

Linthicum: Whether you call it multicloud, metacloud, or super cloud, it’s all one concept, and it’s evolving. Players in the cloud space will start to figure out how to create an ecosystem of IT stacks (operations, security, data integration, etc.) to work between hyperscalers.  New and established cloud players will start developing technology that provides a cross-cloud abstraction and management layer to deal with operations, governance, and security with a single pane of glass and single set of APIs to manage these systems more easily.

SDxCentral: How do you expect cloud-native approaches and open interface infrastructure will evolve?

Linthicum: Smaller companies will lead the charge in developing and marketing an open interface infrastructure that works across clouds. This will help the top global 2,000 customers go in the direction they want with best-of-breed technology. These companies that were smaller players will become more viable in the market by focusing on R&D and bringing AI operations tools, security manager tools, identity access manager tools, directory systems, and all the various tooling that is needed to solve the complexity issue.  Customers will shift to using more abstract interfaces, making it easier for them to leverage services, with the market and the various players embracing a more open interface infrastructure.