Impact Of Web3 On The Cloud, Sustainability Through Distributed Teams & Much More

About Dustin Brown

1. What trends do you see coming up in the IT industry? And what are you most bullish about?

It’s difficult to say for certain whether or not web3 will make cloud technology obsolete or how fast. Web3, also known as the decentralized web, refers to the use of blockchain technology to enable decentralized applications (dApps) and other distributed technologies. These technologies have the potential to enable new ways of storing and sharing data, but it’s unclear at this time how they will impact the use of cloud computing. The rise of more decentralized applications is going to be limited by the speed at which core functionality that is common in cloud-based applications is replaced with decentralized options. For decentralized applications to be successful there will need to be commodity content and other Oracles that feed decentralized applications. This is going to be provided at scale from existing cloud-based services and products. I do not think that 2023 is going to be the birth of Web3 apps instead of the cloud but that day is coming, not for many years though.

2. As the Director of Technology at SitePro Inc., how beneficial do you find remote/hybrid working for development teams? Do you see these working models as sustainable?

Since COVID a lot of companies were forced to figure out a remote/hybrid approach that was sustainable for survival during some very trying times for businesses. I have managed technology and development teams of various sizes and geographical placements for a long time. Having developers all around the globe has been part of a winning plan at every turn. The onset of collaborative development ideas such as Github, Discord, and other tools that remove the need for in-office communication makes this easier. I believe distributed teams and a hybrid approach is not only sustainable but an important ingredient to successful teams and product development.

3. 2023 is around the corner and there are a host of trends and upcoming developments in the IT industry that the world’s gearing up for. What IT development are you looking forward to the most in the coming year?

2023 will be interesting for many reasons. Technology, AI, and Automation are converging in an interesting dimension. I think that cloud-native approaches will be met with more hybrid on-prem solutions working with cloud providers. There will also be more interest in focusing on providing the best product for the price when evaluating IT objectives when it comes to infrastructure. For example, cloud-native security services might be done with the cloud provider of choice. However, PAAS and SAAS companies that have niche dominance such as storage, ML pipelines, or even identity solutions will be outsourced to specialists instead of just enrolling in another product with the current core cloud providers. There will also be more interest in how IT can streamline support around CI/CD, and infrastructure as code, as IT converges more around DevOps and supporting Dev/Product teams instead of being a helpdesk-centric group. Above all these things security will remain the largest concern around IT groups.

4. As a modern stack zealot, what stacks or languages do you see having a large impact on the industry and the dev community in general in 2023?

Staying up to speed as a modern app zealot will be determined by many fast-moving innovations around AI, ML, Edge Computing, and Quantum capabilities. It feels that long gone are the days of very long development cycles and microservices (as well as serverless functions) have reached a point of maturity where they are becoming standardized. Leveraging Docker containers and Kubernetes is the next big step for development and product teams looking to continuously deliver stellar products and updates without disrupting customer experiences. Convergence and maturity of technologies that support writing once run anywhere will gain more popularity as teams and businesses maximize the return on talent from dev and product teams. I do believe you will continue to see TypeScript and Javascript grow in usage for particular projects. RUST is going to take flight as it is touted as faster and more secure than its predecessors. I also feel that blockchain will still see more embracing this year as more and more decentralized applications are put to use. It will become less of a buzzword and more of a backbone. Open Source Software will continue to flourish and drive innovation in all industries. 2023 is going to be the year of embracing what has been considered fringe technologies. Your teams will either embrace and evolve or be left behind to just being responsible for managing CMS systems or tweaking HTML.

Wrapping Up

From shedding light on the cloud becoming a legacy technology to distributed teams being centric to achieving unhindered growth, this Expert Q&A with Dustin was a breath of fresh air. We hope you found these insights just as useful as we did.