Posted on August 24, 2021
Backups & DR
Is your company already using cloud computing solutions? With the different advantages of cloud computing, analysts predict that the market will grow further this year.
As businesses and individuals continue to embrace the “new normal,” the scalability and on-demand features of the cloud became more impactful than ever. Alongside this impending growth come the different cloud computing trends.
These trends help shape the direction of the industry as a whole. As a consumer, you need to stay on top of the trends and use them to your advantage.
With 2021 already underway, what are the top cloud trends that you need to watch out for? Continue reading below for 10 of the most important trends that will dominate the cloud computing industry this year.
One of the key cloud trends to look out for this year is the spike of cloud-native tech. This type of cloud technology allows companies to migrate and modernize their apps, particularly those they use to face their clients.
For starters, cloud-native applications offer a faster release pace. This means speeding up the automation and collaboration processes to conceptualize and deliver value to your customers.
Another is the cloud-native apps’ ease of management. Moreover, it helps you build more reliable systems. This means there will be fewer instances of downtime, thanks to micro-service architecture.
In case issues and failures arise, you can isolate their impact. You can protect the integrity and performance of your application.
Best of all, you can improve customer experiences many times over. Small companies can focus on developing applications that revolve around mobile usage.
All of these benefits make the cloud a huge boost for the growth of startups. In turn, it fosters a more competitive battleground for companies from various industries.
Another important trend is that more companies will offer cloud-based gaming. This is a trend that follows what the music and movie industries are currently riding on.
Big players like Amazon recently launched their cloud gaming platform. Even social media giant Facebook is now taking a dip into cloud gaming.
This emerging shift from traditional gaming to the cloud will somewhat revolutionize the way consumers enjoy their video games. Firstly, it eliminates extreme reliance on buying new hardware every few years or so to keep up with the latest gaming technologies.
In turn, it equates to more savings on the part of gamers. Secondly, the cloud opens up extensive libraries of video game titles. Gamers can access these titles through monthly subscriptions instead of buying physical discs.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineering will be something more companies will invest in. Hence, more companies will focus on developing better AI engineering strategies.
Experts note that most AI projects fail because of poor AI engineering. Sometimes, it is the lack of one that spells doom for the AI project. These projects may reach the stages of prototypes and proofs of concepts.
However, they cannot proceed further to full-scale production. They will begin to experience problems concerning governance, scalability, and maintainability.
A solid AI engineering strategy can keep your AI projects on the right track on the flip side. It can help you meet the dynamic demands of scaling, reliability, overall performance.
As for the specific types of cloud computing services that will complement your AI projects, the best ones include the Platform as a Service (PaaS) and the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
PaaS works by providing cloud components to specific software. It does so while you use it primarily for your applications. PaaS can help integrate your databases and web services.
It is also highly available. This means many users can access it using the same development application. Moreover, it helps reduce your coding requirements significantly.
As for IaaS, it provides deployment of servers, storage, networking, and processing power. It can also lower your expenses as you can purchase resources as you need them.
This year will also be a year where you will see more partnerships between cloud providers. Big players will be open to joint-cloud and multi-cloud offerings.
As a result, customers will get to maximize the different cloud trends. Companies will have a smoother experience sharing access and data with their partners.
Because organizations can run their activities across different clouds and providers, they can further streamline their expenses. They can also improve their data security and backup plans (more on these two later).
Also, these partnerships will foster innovation among smaller players and startups.
This will also be the year where more companies will use serverless computing. This pertains to the cloud’s method of providing back-end services wherein the provider only charges the client’s storage and computing resources.
This means you don’t need to pay for a fixed number of servers. Moreover, you don’t need to reserve and spend on a fixed amount of bandwidth. You can test, launch, and manage programs on the cloud without buying any server space.
Though the method uses “serverless,” it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t involve servers. There are still servers, but the provider will take care of the provisioning and maintenance.
Edge computing is another key trend that will dominate this year. Edge involves computing that happens near the data source. Sometimes, the computing takes place inside the data source itself.
This means not relying solely on the cloud to do all the computing. As a result, you will have little to no trouble regarding latency, among others.
Though network edge may seem to compete directly with traditional cloud, a centralized cloud will remain. However, companies will bridge the gap between users and the centralized cloud through the edge. Developers will integrate edge networks with their existing cloud strategies.
Also, experts note that network edge will pay more attention to security. Providers will look to protect consumers, data, applications, and services.
Organizations find it a challenge to pick between the two with the cloud coming in public or private. Both options come with respective advantages. Each one also has its own weaknesses.
But with the maturity of the cloud ecosystems, you may find the hybrid cloud solutions to be appealing this year and beyond. Hybrid cloud brings the unique strengths of public and private clouds to the table.
For starters, hybrid cloud solutions offer extra security that you can find in private clouds. You can use this higher security level to protect and manage your applications and valuable data.
At the same time, hybrid cloud solutions can host your volatile activities. This hosting is something that a public cloud offers. This allows you to scale up or scale down your activities if need be.
You will also see a rise in virtual cloud desktops. Virtual desktops are images representing applications and operating systems. What is unique about these desktops is that they are separate from the physical device you use to access them.
Thus, you can access these desktops remotely through a network. In this case, it is the cloud service that will bring the entire desktop environment into your smartphone, laptop, or desktop screen regardless of your location.
The great thing about virtual cloud desktops is they eliminate your hardware update expenses. Also, you will not have issues adapting to the environment. Virtual desktops look and feel the same as your physical workstation.
To ensure the remarkable performance of your virtual desktops, you need to get top-notch cloud hosting. You want a private cloud provider that guarantees at least 99.9% uptime.
There will also be a growing need for disaster recovery this year. This is because of downtimes that are proving to be costly for organizations.
The cost of IT downtime stands at an average of $5,600 per minute. For every minute that passes with an ongoing downtime, you’re losing sales opportunities. Though there are on-premises disaster recovery sites, they will start to fade away this year.
Companies will shift to the cloud for their disaster recovery requirements. Aside from disaster recovery, data security will be a trend, albeit on the negative side.
Analysts foresee that organizations will struggle with cloud adoption trends. One of the main reasons for this is data security. Companies feel that shifting to the cloud may affect their data security.
Hence, you will see cloud providers stepping up to ensure the data security of their clients.
Last but not least, 2021 will be a big year for the global public cloud infrastructure. Experts project that the market will breach the $120 billion mark.
One of the key drivers behind this growth is the ongoing pandemic. More people and businesses will use the cloud to work remotely.
By understanding the upcoming cloud trends, you can further appreciate the many benefits of cloud computing. You can also plan your cloud strategies and make key adjustments along the way. However, the first step is finding the best cloud service that can meet your requirements.
We offer public, private, and hybrid cloud services. Connect with us through any of our channels. Tell us more about your storage needs and data-related concerns. Keep in step with the latest trends and maximize the power of the cloud today!