Cloud computing has consistently been growing for the past few years. And, according to IDC, the industry will spend $277 billion on cloud services in 2020. This fact alone says something about the future of cloud. Cloud proves to have multiple advantages for companies using it now but how exactly will it look in the future? Let’s dive into trends and predictions when it comes to cloud computing.
Cloud Drives Innovation
Cloud offers the tools to quickly develop new solutions and change applications. It has an impact not only on the business itself but also on the users. The users today are not easy to please — their needs and expectations change quickly and it’s hard to adjust to this ever-changing customer environment. Future businesses need to represent agility, speed and manage lots of data real-time. And cloud is the way to achieve it, even at a global scale.
How exactly can the cloud transform the future businesses? There are a few areas which will undergo changes thanks to cloud computing in the near future.
Cloud Will Bring Speed & Agility, Even At Scale
One of the major areas cloud computing is starting to change, is businesses’ ability to adjust to changes and stay agile at all times. The need to quickly react to changes is seen across all the industries — whether it is retail, finance or logistics. Cloud can process data much faster and thanks to its services like AI and Machine Learning, the analysis and predictions can be done quicker and be more accurate than ever before. Cloud will change the way we think about data and open new possibilities of utilizing it. Here’s an example: Broad Institute, which works on the Human Genome Projects to try and eliminate or cure genetic diseases, increased their speed of analyzing data by 400% after they switched to Google Cloud Platform. This shows the potential cloud has to change our lives forever. The Broad Institute is just one of many using cloud to analyze more data quicker.
Cloud will also increase speed by increasing IT teams’ productivity. By standardizing on the cloud, you will gain back all the time your developers spend on small, everyday inefficiencies. Cloud will also become more and more popular among companies who use DevOps as their software development model. Cloud computing will take away from the complexity DevOps faces and will help standardize and automate operations even further.
All this will lead companies to stay agile and be able to quickly adjust even at scale. The teams will be more productive, the customers more satisfied, the growth will be faster.
Utilizing The Power Of Real-Time Data
As companies implement cloud, they will be able to utilize more of their data and do so more effectively. Imagine that you can analyze 4 terabytes of data in just one minute. This data can then be utilized to provide better personalization, more relevant content or it can become even more valuable by connecting it to other cloud services like ML API models. Even today, we are still wondering how AI will change our lives, and cloud is a huge part of that. By using AI and ML-based services in the cloud we will truly see the impact of those technologies. This will change the way we make predictions, make business decisions, approach security matters.
The cloud will also allow many businesses to expand beyond what they imagined was ever possible. Storing and analyzing data in the cloud helps many existing companies to maintain and grow applications with millions of users. Real-time data analysis along with automated responses can also change industries like agriculture, food processing and much more by providing automation and optimization solutions on a level we have never seen before.
Better Security And More Control Over Data
Heather Adkins, Director of Information Security and Privacy at Google, says companies must first think of security in a more fluid way. “The boundaries in security have vastly changed,” Adkins explains. “We used to imagine the boundary around a simple physical computer or room of computers. Now, as people carry their computers in their hands all around the world, we are transitioning to thinking about how the boundaries have to be around the data.”
Since security is not about keeping your computer in a locked box, it’s the data you need to keep safe, control and manage. And by using cloud you can do that easily while still maintaining high levels of security. When you decide to move into the cloud and centralize your databases and infrastructure there, you can manage every single record, user, every bit of data on a much bigger scale and do it quicker.
Cloud Will Change The Way We Work
Speed and agility of our work is one thing. But moving into the cloud means much more. Cloud will change the way we think about software in general. Cloud environment is something that calls for continuous integration and continuous delivery, therefore, if companies want to utilize the power of cloud, they will have to switch their work culture towards a “launch and learn” approach. And cloud enables quick changes for quick learning. A culture of experimenting in necessary to maximize the potential of cloud-based solutions.
Cloud will also change how we perceive our workplaces. Thanks to cloud computing, access can be managed on the user level rather than on the network level. This means, that (as long as you have access) you will be able to work anywhere, from any device. If remote work is gaining popularity, imagine how much our work culture will change if we will not be limited to a firewall.
Continuous Change And Continuous Improvement
Cloud services like Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services are changing the world today and will continue to do so. As more companies realize and utilize cloud’s potential, we will move to an entirely different level business-wise, work-wise and culture-wise. If you’re curious to see how cloud computing is being used today and how much of an impact it can have — check out these case studies.
