Stuart Barker
CLOUD COMPUTING
Stuart Barker
Senior Director, Technology Strategy and Advisory
Slalom
Cloud scalability for businesses rests on three key pillars: intelligent architecture, operational efficiency and automation. Organisations seeking to scale effectively are adopting cloudnative technologies such as serverless compute, microservices, containers, and event-driven architecture as these enable systems to expand dynamically while maintaining flexibility.
Cloud providers are also simplifying scalability with built-in auto-scaling for containers, databases and networks, reducing the need for manual intervention. Automation is central to this effort wherein Infrastructure as Code( IaC) speeds up provisioning, deployment pipelines automate testing and rollbacks, and observability tools proactively monitor scaling events in real time.
However, scaling efficiently is not just a technical challenge, rather it is a financial one. FinOps practices enable companies to manage costs by optimising resource allocation and selecting the right pricing models. AI / ML-powered tools like Datadog and ProsperOps further enhance efficiency by predicting scaling needs and adjusting resources accordingly.
By integrating cloud-native design, automation, cost optimisation and AI-driven insights, enterprises can achieve seamless scalability while remaining agile and cost-effective in an increasingly dynamic market.”
190 May 2025