So I blogged about how cloud is the solution to your business continuity needs, in my last blog, Are You Prepared for Business Continuity on the Cloud. Since then, a recurring mantra appeared in banters I have had and also read on the web – “Well, nobody really knows where the Cloud is going.”
It is needless to mention that the cloud computing pie is getting larger by each day, the vendors are in tough competition trying to break out cloud revenue and many companies have come to appreciate the opportunities offered by the cloud. Also, the global cloud computing market is expected to grow from $37.8 billion in 2010 to $121.1 billion till date.
But at this important upsurge, how will cloud computing brandish its utility going forward? Here are the trends that might unfold and dominate the cloud in the near future –
- Cloud Wars go Beyond Price: There will be a time, not too far off in the future when Cloud computing will mature, and so will its customers and their expectations. The Legacy giants will try to woo customers to their respective clouds. To achieve this, emphasis on not only cost-cutting, but also providing agility in spinning up capabilities is required. With more cloud offerings and vendors getting into the market, price differentiation will be old news and feature wars will spike.
- Hybrid Cloud has its Day in the Sun: Hybrid is the future. Public clouds and private clouds will be paired together which will help to push the hybrid cloud to provide enterprises with increased cost efficiency and scalability. This way, organizations will try to get even-steven by offloading some services to the cloud and managing some resources in-house. Regardless of whether cloud is used in a small way, or one goes all out for the cloud, the hybrid cloud approach will give an enterprise the best of both worlds.
- The Era of Private Cloud is on the Verge: The biggest reason that the private cloud fantasy will get over in future is because it is similar to owning your data center. The problem is not that the private cloud is failing, the market is dominated by big players and it is on the cards that new cloud emerging technologies, like analytics and IOT, will follow the same incremental pattern. Private cloud is experiencing some growth but it is improbable that it will outdo the lead of public cloud.
- Containers go Mainstream: With emergence of business-level automation of the cloud, Docker and Containers are the new rockstars of cloud computing. The revolution of containers in the market is big, owing to its pursuit to build new distributed applications in the cloud, as well as ‘containerizing’ existing ones. Also they are known to be lighter weight than virtual machines, which increases hardware utilization and improves economy.
But there are still missing chunks, such as networking and security services, that need to be braced before this stuff is completely in use. Let’s expect container technology providers to be laser-focused on that limitation for the future.
- It’s all about Security: So far, no major security breaches or significant availability challenges have been reported in the cloud. But more and more businesses are recognizing cloud as a solution to their requirements. In the near future, cloud application providers will proactively advertise their improved security and reliability measures. Apart from this, auditing and monitoring are cited to be improved and more predictive. Alerting capabilities will be built directly into the cloud services, permitting the secure use of a powerful technology, ‘Cloud’.
This is how we might see the cloud industry shape up in the near future – at least from my perspective. In spite of the benefits cloud brings to the table, and no matter how these predictions play out, every cloud provider will have to create a major market presence. It will be interesting to see how vendors pitch in the territory of other players to deliver paramount services and be best in class.
Till then, let’s see how accurate these predictions turn out to be. And keep betting big on the Cloud!