2022 CIO Trends: Growth in Cloud, DevSecOps, and Open Source

What will 2022 look like for development teams? With changes in workplace habits and continued digital transformation, CIOs have more than ever to look out for in the new year.

Similarly to 2021, focus on cloud migration and better security practices have continued to remain important to development teams, with the coming year bringing an even stronger emphasis on cybersecurity. Between the 2021 Cybersecurity executive order signed in May and high-profile hacks such as log4j in mid-December, the pressure is on for teams to build both functional and secure software.

Post-pandemic practices also continue to change the way businesses approach day-to-day work. Sapphire’s CIO Innovation Index report for 2021 showed that many CIOs are planning to permanently keep pandemic work practices, such as flexible office structures.

Source: Sapphire report

After reviewing all of the shifts we’ve seen throughout 2021, the StackShare team has compiled a list of five trends that we believe will become important or continue to grow throughout the new year.

Trend 1: Continued Adoption of Startup Tech

CIOs adopted startup tech more frequently throughout 2021 than in previous years, especially to help in the shift towards post-pandemic work environments. Sapphire reports startups supported 86% of respondents in their shifts to remote work in at least some capacity. The time to complete a POC is another indication of startup tech adoption; 91% of CIOs were completing POCs with startups in less than 6 months, compared to 51% in 2020.

As your enterprise looks for new tech to support the worldwide shift to remote environments, StackShare’s community of more than one million developers, CTOs, and enterprise architects can be a great resource for finding the latest and greatest in startup solutions. Plus, as your developers explore the newest tech, Private StackShare for Teams allows you to keep full visibility of your open source tech stack.

Trend 2: Cloud Focus in Verticals

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/848084173553187791/

While cloud migration has been a trending topic for a few years, it’s still a fairly untapped market, with only 5% to 15% of enterprises having moved to the cloud. But, CEO of AWS Adam Selipsky believes that we’ll see more tailoring to industry-specific use cases of cloud over the next few years. American Airlines and Volkswagen are both examples of businesses in non-tech verticals that have moved to the cloud, with the help of AWS. In a CNBC article, Selipsky explained how Volkswagen is utilizing a new cloud-based platform: “Amazon is working with Volkswagen to create an industrial cloud platform to help it move 124 factories to a single software platform.”

Private StackShare for Teams serves as a great stepping stone to get your organization into the cloud as well, regardless of your vertical. This cloud-based dashboard allows you to stay up-to-date on which team members are using which tools and provides visibility into their processes.

Trend 3: More SaaS-Focused Organizations

Adam Selipsky spoke about AWS’s current mission in a ZDNET article: “every company will become a SaaS provider to industries on some level with AWS underneath.”

It’s a lofty goal, but with shifts towards SaaS happening across all verticals, maybe it isn’t so unrealistic. A software application could be a good fit for any type of industry and AWS has begun to capitalize on the trend for every business to say, “there’s a [web] app for that”. As an example, Goldman Sachs just announced the upcoming launch of their cloud service with AWS GS Financial Cloud for Data.

Source: https://tenor.com/view/app-for-that-theres-an-app-for-that-app-for-it-neil-degrass-tyson-ndgt-gif-15622446

Because StackShare has a community of over 1M developers, regardless of which stage you’re at in building up your software development program, StackShare can be a great resource for you. Our collaborative community can partner with you to learn about the successes and failures of other SaaS providers and become a better, stronger development shop through it.

Trend 4: Open Source Compliance and Governance

2021 brought a greater focus on regulations and standardizations in the open source world, especially because open source components become more important to businesses with each passing year. According to a survey by Forrester, 48% of respondents confirmed that open source is “very important” to their company’s digital transformation initiatives.

However, the increased use of open source components means more risk for businesses as well. Sonatype’s “State of the Software Supply Chain Report 2021” showed a 650% YoY increase in cyberattacks aimed at open-source suppliers.

The biggest indication of open source’s impact is a focus on Software Bill of Materials requirements in a 2021 cybersecurity executive order. SBOMs document the components used within a company’s applications, making it easier to upkeep and maintain each component and its possible vulnerabilities.

Source: https://fossa.com/blog/software-bill-of-materials-formats-use-cases-tools/

As the security world continues to focus on security compliance, we will also see built-in features for GitOps used for answering compliance requirements. According to RedMonk, “Using GitHub or GitLab means identity and access management are effectively baked into how you work. With pull requests or merge requests, permissions are baked in. Who signed off on a change and when? That’s baked into Git-based workflows.”

Private StackShare for Teams makes it simple to build a SBOM, with the ability to show which open source components your team is using in a single dashboard view.

Trend 5: Continued Focus on DevSecOps

Source: https://devs.lol/uploads/2021/12/meme-dev-humor-probably-all-of-them-use-log4j-240.jpg

With major hacks making headlines throughout 2021, cybersecurity is definitely at the forefront of enterprises’ minds in 2022. But, development teams also want to focus on DevSecOps: the idea that security should be included in the whole lifecycle of an app’s development, not just at the end when the security team gets their hands on it.

It’s essential for security practices not to cause friction with developers, with a focus on solutions that don’t require them to look away from their development toolchain environment. IBM says that it’s not just the security team’s responsibility to ensure that secure code is being shipped, but the entire organization’s job.

As DevSecOps becomes a more prevalent topic, StackShare continues to create resources that help development teams ship more secure code. We’ve compiled a list of proven, developer-centric open source vulnerability scanners for teams to use while researching solutions. StackShare also launched Security Vulnerability Reporting for Private StackShare for Teams, which puts all security reporting solutions into a single pane of glass.

As we step into the new year, all of us at StackShare are excited to continue fostering a great community of developers, CIOs, and other Dev and IT professionals. We’re ready to partner with you to be at the forefront of these trends, and the other challenges and possibilities that 2022 has to offer.