Governments and enterprises are becoming increasingly reliant on the cloud as the foundation for their digital transformations. The advent of sensor technologies makes any device an intelligent one, enabling millions of data points to be transferred in real time from local sites to the cloud for aggregation, processing, analysis and storage.
Edge compute adoption is on the rise, as enterprises and governments increasingly require their data to be created and processed in real time outside of a centralised data centre. As a result, cloud service providers expect accelerating demand for services originating at the edge, and therefore more mobile edge deployments. Yet not every endpoint has access to the right level of connectivity to support those advanced cloud services. Sites such as aircraft, cruise ships, military vessels and oil platforms are frequently unreachable by reliable terrestrial networks, limiting their ability to fully capitalize on the benefits of the cloud.
Here are a few major trends that we anticipate will influence the momentum behind satellite-enabled cloud connectivity in 2022 and beyond:
#1: Hybrid cloud and networking will continue to experience rapid growth, with more enterprises incorporating it into their IT infrastructure
With the pandemic prompting organizations to speed up their digital transformation initiatives, cloud adoption has similarly accelerated as firms turned to cloud infrastructures to ensure business continuity and resilience, with greater support for new online business and operating environments and catering to the needs of a remote workforce.
While the conversation on cloud connectivity used to be on whether to use a public cloud service, such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, or Amazon Web Services (AWS), or to utilize a private, dedicated cloud connection, the focus has since shifted towards leveraging the hybrid cloud model.
As cloud workloads become ever more critical, governments and enterprises are also adopting a hybrid networking approach - encompassing both terrestrial and satellite technologies - to increase their network resiliency and availability. This approach is only made possible thanks to next-generation satellites that can provide the secure, high-capacity, low-latency connectivity needed to deliver cloud services to even the most remote locations on earth.
A hybrid cloud computing environment - one using a mix of on-premises, private cloud, and third-party, public cloud services that are managed as a single environment - has recently been seen as central to successful digital transformation efforts. IDC notes that a hybrid cloud model ensures that enterprises can achieve the optimal balance across dimensions without sacrificing performance, reliability, or control
In fact, 87% of enterprises surveyed by Flexera in its State of the Cloud Report 2020 are adopting a hybrid cloud approach combining the use of both public and private clouds. Another 2021 study by Mordor Intelligence valued the hybrid cloud market at USD 52.16 billion in 2020, with the sector expected to almost triple to USD 145 billion by 2026.
This trend puts pressure on connectivity providers to deliver the right level of connectivity between private and public cloud resources. Enterprises and government agencies looking to successfully capitalise on a hybrid cloud model will need to ensure their connectivity partners can deliver the bandwidth, security and performance they need for all of their cloud workloads, regardless of site location.
#2: Multi-cloud will become the norm
While hybrid cloud surges in growth, multi-cloud - using multiple cloud computing and storage services in a single network architecture - will become the de facto standard among organizations as they seek to eliminate reliance on any single cloud provider to mitigate disruption risks and achieve flexibility in choosing different cloud services from different providers based on their requirements.
In its 2020 report, Flexera found that 93% of enterprises surveyed reported having a multi-cloud strategy, while according to Gartner, multi-cloud strategies will reduce vendor dependency for two-thirds of organizations through 2024. Accenture notes that this trend is leading to more organizations developing entirely cloud-native applications that have little to no architectural dependence on any specific cloud provider.
This movement towards multi-cloud has already seen public cloud rivals Microsoft and Oracle collaborating to allow customers to migrate and run enterprise workloads across each other’s cloud platforms. The partnership illustrates how multi-cloud deployments are creating opportunities for cloud providers to offer services that interoperate with competitors.
Besides breaking down of barriers between cloud service providers, the rise of multi-cloud has also seen the merging of satellite and terrestrial network architectures to optimize access to cloud-based applications and workloads regardless of location. This will continue to drive partnerships between satellite and terrestrial operators, as well as relationships between these operators and the leading cloud service providers to ensure critical workloads are routed directly to the cloud, from anywhere.
#3: Major cloud service providers will increase investments in satcom designated services
More cloud providers are seeing the importance of satellites in the cloud ecosystem and are developing partnerships with satellite operators to ensure the ubiquitous and seamless availability of their services. Private connectivity solutions such as AWS Direct Connect and Microsoft ExpressRoute rely on an ecosystem of connectivity partners - including SES - to deliver dedicated network connections from end-user premises to their data centres. These relationships ensure organizations have direct and resilient connectivity to their cloud services regardless of geographical location or local network infrastructure availability, through a global network of terrestrial and satellite-enabled service providers.
Both Microsoft and AWS have also introduced Ground Station as a Service (GSaaS) solutions, which are fully managed, virtualized satellite ground stations that enable satellite owners to communicate and control their capacity with direct integration into the cloud platforms, reducing the cost, risk and complexity of satellite operations. In turn, this allows satellite operators to offer more advanced offerings to their customers, who are demanding new solutions such as platform virtualization and Virtual Network Functions (VNFs).
This trend of partnerships between satellite operators and cloud providers will see organizations gain direct access to multiple cloud providers and have the flexibility to run workloads in different clouds based on region, function, use case or other business factors. Firms will also be able to control satellite communications, process data, and scale their operations without having to worry about building or managing their own ground station infrastructure. Leveraging a diverse set of technologies, including satellite and ground infrastructure, will provide their networks with extra resiliency and help elevate team efforts in delivering value to their entire operation, including in hard-to-reach areas where cloud-optimized connectivity is still a challenge.
With these developments, the opportunity for enterprises and governments to leverage cloud-optimised connectivity to create new revenue streams, increase customer satisfaction and retention, and ensure business and mission success is set to explode in 2022 and the years ahead.
