The future holds great promise when it comes to the cloud. It’s no secret cloud computing has taken off in recent years with new innovations and business applications. But figuring out where cloud computing will be by the end of the decade can be difficult for those who don’t know what cloud computing is.
So first, what is cloud computing and how can it help my business? Cloud computing is storing and accessing programs and data over the internet instead of a computer hard drive. The cloud is another name for the internet but has nothing to do with the hard drive. If data is stored on the hard drive or programs are run from the hard drive, it’s called local storage and computing.
Organizations finding cloud computing to be more cost-effective in the long-term are waiting to discover how cloud computing will evolve and what it’ll mean for their future. Here are a few predictions for companies and where cloud computing will be in 2020.
More application availability on the cloud
Industry specific applications are becoming more available on the cloud like Phreebooks for accounting and Palo BI Suite for business intelligence.
It’s predicted that by 2020, more than a quarter of all applications will be available via cloud. About 56 percent of enterprises consider cloud to be a strategic differentiator while about 58 percent of enterprises spend more than 10 percent of their annual budgets on cloud services. Researchers predict there will be more than 8.2 billion active mobile devices by 2020 with the trend of more and more applications on the cloud to follow. Software will be on tap via cloud since the cloud makes it possible to rapidly build and deploy applications leading to better technology and faster response times. It’ll make it possible for organizations to get what they want on-demand.
Further segmentation and more education
Consumers are start to understand the differences between public, private, and hybrid cloud deployments. Companies can expect to see greater segmentation and better education about which type of cloud works best for them. More industry leaders will be working to establish boundaries when it comes to business-critical workloads and security measures.
Companies choosing to stay with shared clouds have the risk of slower performance and increased security threats. As a result, industry leaders can expect to see a migration to private clouds in the future.
More hybrid cloud adoption and increased cloud development
Some industry leaders say that 50 percent of companies will have hybrid clouds as early as 2017. CIOs will be pushing for more strategies implementing the cloud although they won’t always be pure cloud implementations since it can be very difficult to do so. The hybrid cloud provides a combination of strengths like management convenience and on-premise solutions. CIOs can expect to see more resources going towards cloud development since 85 percent of new software is being built with the cloud in mind. Enterprises can expect to see an increase in third-party, enterprise and commercial developers and contributors to cloud application ecosystems, marketplaces, and API exchanges.
Expect HR and marketing to take charge of tech innovation
Human resources and marketing are making their way to the top of the technology priority list. As enterprises are starting to see an increased use of Big Data applications through the cloud, they will begin to see the ROI that can come by human resources and marketing putting the cloud to work for their departments. Prior to the availability of cloud computing, every department of a company had to go through the IT department. This process has changed management as well as current and outdated processes.
Say goodbye to the traditional infrastructure
It’s expected by 2020 that CIO will not be able to draw a map of their infrastructure if asked due to the evolving characteristics of the cloud. Software can be expected to almost completely float away from hardware since companies are already starting to find many valuable applications available online while eliminating the need to keep purchasing new servers. Companies can also expect individual software applications to get larger and more complex for scalability. Since applications will only get larger, the emphasis will be on modular software. Modular software are large applications with components that can be modified without shutting down the entire program. This will require a new approach to technology by CIOs and their department.