Forrester predicts the key developments in cloud technology that will shape the industry in 2017.

Cloud computing has been the most exciting and disruptive force in the tech market in the last decade – and it will continue to disrupt traditional computing models at least through 2020.

Starting in 2017, large enterprises will move to cloud in a big way, and that will super-charge the market. Forrester predicts that the cloud market will accelerate faster in 2017, as enterprises around the world look to cloud to power their core business systems in addition to their customer-facing applications: Forrester forecasts that the global public cloud market will reach $146B in 2017, up from just $87B in 2015.

As overall cloud adoption and spending ramps up further in the coming year, Forrester’s 2017 cloud predictions outline 10 key developments in cloud technology that will shape the industry in 2017. Here are three examples of cloud trends that cannot be ignored in the New Year:

• Beyond pay-per-use, buyers will save money in cloud many ways. There are more ways to buy cloud services – on-demand, pre-paid, reserved capacity, enterprise agreements – every month, and this trend will accelerate in 2017.
  As a result, there is now an active market for cloud cost management tools which enable increased savings for organizations.
• Lift and shift tools will improve to make cloud migration easier.
  Enabled by a growing list of migration services from megacloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM, the lift-and-shift model is becoming more viable. In 2017, these tools will accelerate the rate of cloud migration given their low cost for bulk application migrations.

Hybrid cloud networking will remain the weak link in hybrid cloud. While hybrid cloud has arrived, albeit in a diminished capacity, it will take a long time for most organizations’ networks to be able to seamlessly connect into hybrid cloud management and orchestration tools.

Don’t wait until next year to consider these trends. Businesses must get their private cloud and SaaS strategies in shape in 2017, and that means you should start now.

To get ahead, executives need to educate themselves about exciting developments in hyperconverged infrastructure, security, networking and containers. Lastly, specialization is afoot: companies should start the New Year with a fresh look at their regional and industry-specific cloud providers.