It has become increasingly challenging to keep up with the near exponential emergence of innovations brought about by the power of the cloud. The realm of cloud computing is evolving at an unprecedented rate and the magnitude of products and services available is enough to bewilder even the most seasoned technology maven. To make matters worse, proper preparation with regards to the growing landscape has become an integral component of future business success, only adding to the confusion and pressure of identifying which trends are worth investing in.
In order to curb your anxiety and help you prepare for the start of the decade that will undoubtedly be defined by this tidal wave of emerging technology, we’ve narrowed down 5 trends that will shape the 2020 Cloud Computing market.
Cloud computing can be defined as the practice of utilising a concentration of remote servers instead of local servers, which provide key compute system resources to the end-user such as data management and storage. Cloud computing in recent years, however, has also allowed for various opportunities for localising data processing - edge computing arguably being one of the biggest disruptions to the traditional status quo. Edge computing allows data processing to take place closer to the originating data source, enabling data-stream acceleration, which ultimately decreases bandwidth and allows for drastically reduced latency.
Edge computing is one of the core aspects that will lead to more efficient IoT utilisation. Currently, IoT systems accrue high connectivity costs, but with Edge Computing filtering real-time raw data streams and only sending the necessary data to the cloud, these costs can be lowered significantly.
Serverless computing refers to the payment of backend services, only while it is actively in use. AWS has made big strides in the serverless computing industry by launching Lambda in 2014 and its new open source project, Firecracker. With the use of serverless computing, developers are able to pay for services on a flexible basis, which cuts costs related to provisioning and maintaining servers while the code is still in the production phase. As open source solutions continue to increase, cross-industry cloud computing is predicted to make a breakthrough in the near future, dissolving the “client to specific cloud brand” linkages which are currently at play.
Traditionally Open Source software refers to any software with a viewable and modifiable source code, as opposed to proprietary or closed source software. Cloud-based Open Source enterprise software is predicted to further spike in popularity, as cloud computing has fostered the ideal ecosystem in which the open technology can continue to thrive in the years to come. Fast-growing open source adoption isn’t showing any signs of slowing down soon, and according to The Linux Foundation, 72%% of companies were already implementing open source in 2018 for internal or non-commercial use, with a further 55% using open source commercially. Databases such as MySQL and MariaDB are also boosting the open source adoption rates, and will continue to do so well into the era of cloud computing to come.
Moving forward into 2020, a wider range of key industry players are expected to adopt and deploy containers. Companies select Kubernetes platforms based on their ability to meet the company’s needs, but according to CRN, Kubernetes are predicted to blur the cloud barriers next year. Increased competition in the Cloud Infrastructure market, will also push companies to strengthen their Kubernetes propositions in order to remain competitive.
As we enter the next decade, Kubernetes are expected to become synonymous with containerisation, and containers as a development standard. For those unfamiliar with containers and the orchestration layer known as Kubernetes, be sure to read our blog post on Kubernete deployment.
According to Forbes, 83% of company workloads are expected to be in the cloud by next year. Most businesses are migrating to the cloud to increase IT agility, but emerging technologies are also playing a pivotal role in enterprise cloud adoption. Currently, digital transformation is the leading motivation behind cloud migration, but Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are predicted to be the top two catalysts driving enterprises towards cloud adoption in 2020.
Once thought to be solely in the domain of research laboratories and mega technology institutions such as Google and Facebook, the democratised use of machine learning processes and algorithms for every day computational challenges has been made a reality. Cloud providers have tipped the scales toward accessibility with a litany of pre-packaged services and libraries of toolsets that can be instantly put to use toward all manner of heavy computational tasks. From natural language processing to big data analysis and trend forecasts these applications can be put to work with relative ease no matter the size of your business.
As cloud computing becomes less of a buzzword and more of a key industry benchmark, we challenge you to think of your industry, identify problems, and contact us. With our highly skilled team of technology professionals and advanced cloud computing experience, we’re just the right flavour of brilliant to help your company prepare for the cloudy future and get an edge over the competition.
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