What does the future hold for cloud computing?

Apr, 2021 - By WMR

Cloud computing has become an essential technological part of any modern-day business. This novel technology is being adopted in almost every sector for easy maintenance, improved security, large network access, and resource pooling. Aside from the convenience and affordability of cloud computing services, it is also economical for the business itself because it does not require purchasing too many computing resources. Instead, companies simply pay for the number of computing resources they use based on the usage. However, like any other technology, cloud computing is changing with newer advancements being introduced. The year 2021 is going to be crucial as there will be plenty of new improvements in cloud computing.

One of the key trends is going to be wider applications of edge computing. Many experts in the field of computing consider edge as the new cloud. In fact, many large vendors such as IBM, Intel, Dell, and HPE are focused on offering edge computing services across thousands of local points of presence. Although a centralized cloud will keep its place, the development of serverless computing models is empowering real-time IT applications. Another key trend likely to become popular is multi-cloud and joint cloud provider offerings. Multi-cloud refers to the use of multiple cloud computing and storage services in a single heterogeneous architecture. The adoption of multi-cloud computing will provide much-needed agility, competitive pricing, and robust security.

Aside from the convenience and affordability of cloud computing services, it is also economical for the business itself as it does not require purchasing too many computing resources. Keeping in that mind, serverless computing is likely to gain traction in the IT sector this year. It has the ability to provide backend services on an as-used basis. Besides, it allows users to write and deploy code without any hassle and worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Cloud platforms are increasingly becoming more sophisticated with the continuous development of automated cloud orchestration and optimization. The advent of artificial intelligence engineering could be a key trend in 2021. For AI projects, organizations need a strong AI engineering strategy. Besides, these projects also require scalability, maintainability, adequate governance otherwise they would not be successful. Artificial intelligence engineering makes AI a key part of the mainstream DevOps process rather than being an isolated project.

Another key point to note from AI engineering is responsible AI, which has become an umbrella term for various aspects of AI implements that manage transparency, trust, accountability, AI risk, fairness, ethics, and compliance. There is another interesting trend that we are likely to see in 2021 is a reshuffling of ‘Big Three Cloud Providers’. Currently, the cloud computing field is dominated by Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. However, the scenario is likely to change with Alibaba Cloud is expected to replace Google Cloud in 2021. The Chinese cloud computing provider has been taking massive leaps in this sector with its significant revenue generation from finance, retail, and internet businesses. However, Amazon Web Services will remain the top cloud computing service provider with its novel services including Amazon Simple Queue Service, Amazon Chime, AWS Chatbot, and AWS RoboMarker.

That being said, the future for cloud computing does look promising with some exciting trend likely to surge this year. Cloud has already become an imperative part of businesses and will become far more important and superior in the coming times.