In only a few days, we will say goodbye to 2021 and welcome a new year: 2022. After the disastrous, pandemic-hit 2020, 2021 was a year of resiliency and fight-back for humanity. Thanks to technological advancements, countries were able to vaccinate people en masse. For the Software Development and IT industry, 2021 was a significant year as expected.
In 2022, there will be an evolutionary Arm Race between the Coronavirus mutation and high-tech-enabled vaccine research. For the Software Development industry, the current digitalization trends will continue with many changes, innovations, and new uses of existing technologies.

Predicting the future is a challenging task. Like the past two years, here I am predicting the most important trends of the Software Development trends in 2022.

1. Centralized Infrastructure: Cloud-First is the new Norm
Like the few Giant big supermarkets that replaced the local shops in the western world, the public Cloud will continue to replace the regional Data Center. In the coming years, the public Cloud will also be the go-to Infrastructure for Enterprises, Government, and Startups. The public Cloud is now the hotbed of digital innovation, and the trend will continue in 2022. Public Cloud is also playing a significant role in democratizing Security, Blockchain and bringing many innovations in an accessible way to the customer.
Gartner has predicted a 16% revenue increase of public Cloud in 2022:

So, if you are a decision-maker in a digital company, it is time to be serious about Cloud. If you are an engineer, start learning Cloud by creating a free account or taking a MOOC course.

2. Decentralized Infrastructure: Cloud on the Edge
Unlike the public Cloud where we want to have storage, compute power, and AI/ML in a central place (Availability Zone, Region), Edge computing brings the storage, compute power, and AI/ML near the customer. Low latency scenario (Gaming), poor network bandwidth (Off-shore sites), No network, regulatory requirement, real-time use cases (connected vehicles), intelligent and powerful devices (IoT) are scenarios where Edge Computing is needed.
With the rise of 5G, Web 3.0, and other technological innovations, edge computing will continue to see widespread adoption in 2022 and beyond. Also, retailers will adopt edge computing massively in the coming years.
Public cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP are also leading by providing many edge computing services: AWS Snow Family, AWS IoT Greengrass, Azure Stack Edge, Azure Edge Zone, Google Distributed Cloud.
A new initiative, “State of the Edge,” is to standardize Edge Computing.

3. Public Cloud: Multi-Cloud will get more Momentum
One primary concern of Public Cloud adoption is vendor locking. Once you move your Infrastructure, Storage, and Compute to the Public Cloud provider, you are vendor locked. Many enterprises try to be wise and use multiple vendors to avoid vendor locking. Unfortunately, it only locked the enterprise with multiple vendors instead of one vendor. There will always be vendor locking if you cannot use one public Cloud (e.g., CosmosDB, AWS S3, BigTable) in another public cloud.
Fortunately, there is a reverse trend to provide services that are API compatible with the widespread public cloud Services. MinIO (compatible with S3), Aviatrix (Cloud Native Networking), Volterra (Distributed Cloud Services), LightOS (Cloud Native Storage) are among the many services working to provide Cloud neutrality.
Also, Google is working on bringing their popular services (Big Query) into other public Clouds (AWS, Azure).

4. Container: Kubernetes will go background, while Docker will bounce back
Containerization is the crucial technology of the modern IT industry. Kubernetes played a massive role in popularizing and democratizing containerization. Thanks to the enormous effort, careful design, and implementation, Kubernetes is now a rock-solid technology. It plays the same role as Linux played in the Server world. Due to its far-sighted design (Operations, Volume), Kubernetes can be used in many use cases without introducing breaking changes.
As Kubernetes gets maturity, there will be less traction in Kubernetes in the coming years. Don’t get me wrong, Kubernetes will be the engine of modern Software development. But we will see more traction about the new adoption and use cases of Kubernetes, whereas Kubernetes itself will move slowly due to its maturity.
Like Kubernetes, Docker also played a pivotal role in containerization. Unfortunately, the company struggled to monetize Docker in its heyday. Docker has recently announced a new subscription model from 2022:

Its pricing model is affordable. Thinking about its contribution to modern Cloud Native development, I wish Docker success with its new subscription model.

5. Cyber Security: Everyone will take Security seriously
Cyber Security is like the “Elephant in the Room” for startups or mid-size companies. They can see the need for Cyber Security but cannot implement it properly due to a lack of resources. Only large enterprises can afford a specialized security team.
One of the most significant advantages of the public cloud vendors is that they have democratized Cyber Security. Now, leveraging the Public Cloud services, Startups or mid-size companies can implement highly secure apps without much effort.
One drawback of public cloud security is that if it is compromised, then millions of companies will be affected. There was some high profile security vulnerability of the public clouds in 2021:
In 2022, the public Cloud and Linux will work harder with Security.
Another concern about Security is the current Open Source development model. A single developer often develops a vital and core module/library in his spare time. Unfortunately, if that module/library is compromised, then almost all the companies of the world are affected. One such high profile issue was log4j vulnerability, which will affect nearly half of the IT companies of the world:
It is time for large companies to rethink the current open-source model where developers maintain a core piece of software without any financial benefit and support.

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By: Md Kamaruzzaman