It’s been 24 years since Sean O’Sullivan filed a trademark on ‘cloud computing’. Two years later, in 1999, Salesforce.com became the first widely-marketed pure-cloud service, and VMware launched a new era with its virtualisation platform. At first, adoption was slow – in 2004, cloud software made up barely 1% of that market. Yet, by 2021, according to BVP, it has nearly reached 40%. Data gathered by Forbes shows that hybrid cloud adoption grew threefold in the last year alone, and by next year, 80% of all IT budgets will go towards cloud solutions.

In other words, we live in a cloud world, and it’s a good time to ask what lessons we’ve learned along the way. What does the cloud look like after the honeymoon period?