Sunday, January 24, 2016

5 Relevant Cloud Computing Trends to Watch


Over the past several years, cloud computing has experienced exponential growth, as small and mid-sized businesses have sought to capitalize on the advantages that cloud computing provides. One of the heavily touted benefits of cloud computing is its ability to create some unique advantages for small to mid-sized business, subsequently serving to level the playing field, so that these businesses have the capacity to compete on a broader scale. Currently, more than 60 percent of all small to mid-sized businesses have adopted some form of a cloud computing solution to help meet their computing needs. Additionally, approximately 72 percent of these businesses have virtualized a significant portion of their servers.

The growth in cloud computing is only expected to increase in the coming years. Following are some current trends that are extremely relevant, promising to pay a substantial role in the development of future cloud computing solutions.

1.     Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Recently the discussion surrounding the relative merit of personal cloud computing solutions, and its counterpart, public cloud computing. The introduction of hybrid cloud computing offers an infrastructure that merges the high security benefits of personal cloud computing with the powerful, cost effective and scalable public cloud computing model attributes. This allows IT managers to have access to more computing choices, while those who are in favor of big data and security will also find a high level of satisfaction in the hybrid computing model.

As hybrid cloud computing models continue to move toward the mainstream, look for more businesses to adopt the hybrid cloud computing solution, which will subsequently put an end to the debate.

2.     BYOD
One major benefit that cloud computing has done is create a situation in which business can facilitate mobile accessibility without having to create a massive local network infrastructure. One area in which technology is evolving at a revolutionary pace is in the way of mobile technology. What has changed most about communications technology is that the latest technology is no longer marketed to IT professional, but it is now marketed directly to the consumer, which is somewhat of a role reversal of what has traditionally taken place.

Because employees will generally have mobile technology that is substantially superior to what the IT department has, the demand by employees to use their own devices was inevitable. Although this business computing model can create a number of security challenges for businesses, it also comes with its benefit to the company. For instance, the cost of upgrading the mobile technology no longer rests with the company, as the employee will now carry this burden. It also improves proficiency and worker morale. This model will require the implementation of a Mobile Device Management system in order to facilitate the proclivity of employees to use the cloud to move more and more their personal data to personal cloud services.

3.     Platform as a Service
PaaS solutions allow businesses to significantly reduce their IT costs, while maintaining the capacity to increase application development, using more efficient development and testing methods. The International Data Corporation is projecting that PaaS will expand its market from $3.7 billion to $14 billion globally over the next several years.

4.     Big Data Analytics
Over the last several years there has been a fierce debate surrounding the best computing option for small to mid-sized businesses as far as cloud computing and big data analytics is concerned; however, much in the same way as the debate concerning the choice between the personal and public cloud solutions ended with businesses finding it more advantageous to combine the best of both solutions in lieu of choosing one over the other, businesses have also chose to combine the benefits of big data with cloud computing.

The emergence of big data analytics over the next several years will provide businesses with a scalable tool that is cost effective, allowing them to compete on a global scale.

5.     Graphics as a Service
Traditionally, the capacity to run a high-quality, high-end graphics application required a substantial hardware infrastructure; however, the emergence of cloud computing is quickly transforming this reality. There is a growing number of cloud-based graphics technologies that are being offered to businesses as online services through the cloud computing model. These services provide the capacity for the end users to effectively run high-end graphics programs at a low cost, using a downloadable HTML5 browser.

It is certain; cloud computing is here to stay. The only thing that is left for businesses is to determine is how they will exploit the multitudinous benefits associated with cloud computing.