How cloud computing development affects the future of our societies?

You all must have heard people using the term cloud – it is where applications and documents are saved, or a centralized storage space. It allows running workloads remotely over the internet. Users share resources and services over the network and this leads to maximizing efficiency.

Cloud computing is considered to be a relatively new technology but predictions about its development date back almost to the middle of 20^th century. The Canadian electrical engineer Douglas Parkhill predicted (in 1966 in his book The Challenge of the Computer Utility) that computer industry would become like a public utility “in which many remotely located users are connected via communication links to a central computing facility”. That was quite much on point, right?

Cloud computing began to develop quickly in the 1990s when telecommunication companies began investing in high-capacity fibre-optic networks. This enabled the development of cloud computing and companies started opting for it, rather than relying on private computing systems, maintained within their own facilities.

Benefits of using cloud computing

Cloud computing offers a lot of benefits, such as:

• Access to applications and content from any point at any time
• Cost-effectiveness; lower energy and facility cost
• Increase in business capacities
• Better utilization of infrastructure investments
• Better staff productivity across the organization

Moreover, by using web-based cloud computing you do not need to worry about running out of storage space or memory, because data is on remote servers, not on actual devices. Another notable benefit comes with the amount you pay for your computing resources. These costs are lower due to the fact that you share the resources with other companies which are using the service and paying for it. Cloud computing offers a very fast environment – you are always just a click away from all your resources.

Cloud computing and our future

As we already said, the cloud is not a new idea, but its capabilities are now beginning to be realized. Last year Forrester predicted that cloud computing would radically accelerate enterprise transformation. Indeed, in 2018 it has become a must-have technology for every enterprise. A recent research shows that today almost 60% of all North American enterprises rely on public cloud platforms. As a comparison – this is five times more than the number of companies that did five years ago.

How will the cloud shape our future for the next decade or so? And what will be the major trends in the upcoming year/s?

The number of cloud services will continue to rise

Take a look at these statistics:

• According to Gartner, the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will reach $72.4 billion worldwide by 2020.
• According to Bain & Company, by the same year subscription-based Software-as-a-service (SaaS) will grow at an 18% CAGR
• Investment in platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will grow almost double in 2019, compared to what it was in 2016, reaching 56%. This will make it the fastest growing sector of cloud platforms

Enterprises will rely on cloud computing more than ever

Nowadays companies race to modernize existing apps and processes so that they can utilize data and produce powerful ideas and insights from the huge amounts of data they have. Cloud computing will establish itself as the basis of future enterprise application platforms. Moreover, it is expected that private cloud adoption and spending will grow considerably. The emphasis will be on creating flexible, agile and automated software development platforms. Enterprises will more often choose to have and rely on private clouds built and run for them.

Resurgence in the so called “industry clouds”

Companies will look for platforms run by companies that understandthe cloud adoption playbook their industry. SaaS Vendors will develop and add new tools and options, taking into consideration the specific industries which they target. The SaaS apps already started turning into development platforms and this will become even more obvious this year.

In the end we’ll share an important insight from The Cloud Adoption Playbook. It casts light on the connection between culture and technology, specifically cloud computing. The word is about the cultural changes that need to be made so that the adoption of cloud technology is successful. And the touchpoints of culture that shape cloud success include: willingness to embrace change; understanding of the decision-making style, flexibility, talent management, attitude towards risk and controlled experimentation.

If you are looking for an effective and secure solution for your data storage, check out Latona‘s cloud computing service.

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