Businesses of all kinds have already taken to using cloud technology to reduce costs and ensure business continuity. A recent online poll from GoodFirms indicated that multi-cloud infrastructure usage will grow to 86% by 2024 among large organizations.
Staying abreast of this fast-evolving industry can be challenging. Here are some key trends in cloud computing that businesses should keep an eye on.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML) are among the latest trends in cloud technology, revolutionizing businesses through smart automation. AI/ML technologies make sense of massive amounts of data while offering insightful analysis – helping organizations improve customer experience while increasing productivity.
AI/ML in the cloud offers enterprises access to advanced capabilities like machine learning, natural language processing and predictive analytics without spending too much time on manual processes. This enables decision-makers to streamline business operations while automating repetitive tasks while improving team collaboration more effectively.
Cloud computing makes AI/ML applications simpler to scale, making them ideal for analyzing billion-scale datasets and driving business performance more effectively. Furthermore, it reduces costs by eliminating hardware or infrastructure investments – but to ensure these programs remain governed and monitored appropriately it is still important that an enterprise implement safeguards to safeguard these programs appropriately.
Cloud computing and AI/ML combine to form an irresistibly dynamic team, revolutionizing every industry. Companies invest heavily in cloud platforms to accelerate digital transformation and enable more efficient operations from teams. Therefore, organizations must seek strategic partners equipped with all of the right tools that support this transformation – partners that offer end-to-end, seamless solutions that help achieve your goals.
Container Orchestration Platforms
Containers are one of the key technologies used for developing cloud native applications, providing lightweight alternatives to virtual machines that package software and its dependencies into an isolated unit that can be deployed anywhere. Unfortunately, managing large-scale deployments of containers without an orchestration platform can be daunting; orchestration platforms automate deployment, scaling, management and networking functions for containers allowing application performance optimization as they ensure resources are utilized optimally and services are readily available when needed – popular examples being Kubernetes, Docker Swarm and OpenShift as popular solutions among others.
Containers help companies reduce operational expenses. This is possible as companies don’t need to invest in buying and maintaining their own data centers, pay salaries for teams responsible for installing, managing, upgrading, or maintaining hardware themselves, plus they have faster access to any needed information than ever before.
Cloud services also offer redundancy, which helps protect business operations from system errors affecting operations. This helps lower downtime costs and productivity losses while making changes quickly and effortlessly – something especially valuable to organizations that work with multiple clients at once.
Multi Cloud and Edge Computing
Businesses using multiple cloud solutions from different providers to expand their infrastructure can take advantage of customized infrastructure and access a wider array of services than with traditional hardware-based systems that rely on only one provider; 76% of large enterprises are currently employing such strategies.
Edge computing will continue to drive this trend with its ability to process data closer to its source, which makes IoT devices and data that needs quick access possible more quickly by reducing latency and providing a more robust and secure environment since data doesn’t have to be transported back upstream to be processed by cloud-based services.
Edge computing also supports 5G integration, making data access and processing even faster than before. This will facilitate multi-cloud solutions by placing data centers or edge servers closer to customers for increased performance at lower costs.
Multi-cloud environments also allow companies to easily adopt top-tier technologies from multiple vendors, which will reduce vendor lock-in risk and make innovation more accessible for your company. Multi-cloud also helps improve security and compliance as a multi-cloud environment provides more options for where and how data storage occurs – which in turn supports privacy regulations better. It may also reduce IT department headcount as your cloud provider handles time-consuming tasks like software updates and hardware setup.
Big Data
Prior to cloud computing, organizations had to maintain and operate their own data infrastructure – large data centers which required costly construction, maintenance and upgrade efforts. Now with cloud computing, organizations can outsource this burden to cloud infrastructure providers who will bill for capacity when necessary – making scaling storage and processing capabilities much simpler as data needs grow.
Edge computing adds another component to this trend by moving analysis and data processing closer to devices and sensors that produce it, thus minimizing latency and bandwidth requirements while providing faster and more efficient analysis. For example, wearable real-time heart monitors can detect arrhythmias by analyzing their collected data onsite rather than sending it off for analysis via cloud platforms like Dropbox – potentially saving on bandwidth usage costs and processing power costs by performing analysis directly on device itself.
With increasing demand for cloud-based data analytics tools comes increased need to safeguard and secure their data. Cloud service providers have responded by offering security features such as encryption, tokenization and advanced monitoring as well as developing more comprehensive risk and compliance management tools and offering flexible models such as hybrid cloud or federated cloud systems to assist companies manage deployment costs effectively.
