Cloud Trends

As we head into the second half of the year, it’s a great time to look at the key trends shaping the cloud industry. In this video blog, Telefónica Tech’s CTO of Cloud, Alex Smith, reviews some of the most significant developments, including industry clouds, FinOps, GreenOps, and the shift from cloud-first to cloud-smart strategies, as well as the integration of AI in cloud environments.

1. Structured Approach to FinOps

FinOps is crucial for managing cloud costs effectively. Many businesses struggle with cost optimisation and keeping cloud spend under control, especially across multiple clouds. Initiatives such as Telefónica Tech’s FinOps Accelerator Service help organisations take a structured approach to understand how different services impact IT spending. By developing processes that embed FinOps within organisations, we help drive control and governance over cloud spending. A well-implemented FinOps strategy leads to improved financial control and more strategic investment in innovation, freeing up more money to spend on business applications and services that add real value. It also allows IT leaders to demonstrate tangible value from cloud investments to their stakeholders.

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Alex Smith, CTO, Telefónica Tech UK&I

2. GreenOps – Total Carbon Impact in the Cloud

GreenOps is an emerging area that has come off the back of sustainability and ESG. It’s a combination of a number of areas.  It’s more than just carbon reporting; it’s a focus on on all of the operations that link to green metrics.  At Telefónica Tech we can help to build those processes into your organisation through initiatives such as our GreenOps Accelerator.  This means GreenOps becomes more than just a dashboard, but also looks at the regulatory compliance statements and the total impact of carbon across your business.  Not just across infrastructure, but also end-user devices and through ethical asset disposal. This provides a way for our customers to build an operating model, with tools and services that bring that data together, keep it at source, and then provide the metrics back that can inform customer decisions on where they want to spend. So, it becomes less of a financial spend decision, but more of a green based decision that becomes the driving metric.

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Alex Smith, CTO, Telefónica Tech UK&I

3. Shift Towards Industry Clouds

Industry clouds are an emerging part of the cloud landscape. These solutions are highly specialised for specific sectors, offering immediate value out of the box. However, they are more challenging to create and require co-innovation with customers and partners. This collaborative development opens up opportunities for repeatable solutions and a broader ecosystem of partners. Increasingly, we see different providers and transformation partners like Telefónica Tech working together to deliver greater value to customers through our cloud solutions.

4. Moving from Cloud First to Cloud Smart

The initial rush to migrate workloads to the cloud is evolving into a “cloud smart” approach. Businesses are now evaluating the best location for each workload—whether on-premises, co-located, or in the public cloud. This strategy optimises costs and leverages transformation opportunities to modernise applications rather than simple lift-and-shift migrations. It allows for more strategic decision-making, ensuring that cloud investments align with business goals and deliver optimal ROI.  At Telefónica Tech we are well positioned in terms of  options we offer.  For example, we offer capabilities for hosting IaaS workloads in our data centres. We are also one of the few providers that can offer our own private cloud environment for customers, as well as integrate with co-location services at our data centres as well as the public cloud services that we can deploy and manage.  We offer customers the ability to pick the right location for their workload and then leverage a common set of managed services and support options around that.

5. Cloud and AI

AI is the current trend, but in the context of the cloud, it’s more about providing a platform for AI services. Our data & AI, business applications, and modern workplace practices are all leveraging new footprints for AI workloads. At the heart of this evolution is a growing recognition that to effectively support AI workloads and manage costs, enterprises will increasingly adopt a hybrid mix of public and private cloud solutions. Tech leaders are exploring how to maximise the benefits of Large Language Models (LLMs) offered by public cloud providers while ensuring sensitive data remains secure within private clouds. This balanced approach allows organisations to leverage advanced AI capabilities without compromising on data privacy and security.  Telefónica Tech supports this by building robust frameworks and landing zones for AI development, ensuring all the necessary guardrails and security. Whether hosting applications on-premises or in the public cloud, we ensure portability, edge capabilities, and AI architectures to find the best location.

Cloud and AI

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Alex Smith, CTO, Telefónica Tech UK&I

By staying ahead of these trends, businesses can better navigate the complexities of the cloud, harnessing the power of industry clouds, FinOps, GreenOps, cloud-smart strategies, and AI to drive innovation and achieve their strategic goals. Telefónica Tech is committed to supporting organisations in this dynamic environment, providing the tools and expertise needed to thrive in the cloud era.

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