5 Unmissable Cloud Computing Trends in 2021
“Data is the new oil”, “Data is the new currency”. Over the past decade, these phrases have made the rounds across the global corporate sector. What’s even more interesting is that the volume of data exchanged through the cloud each year is growing at an exponential rate.
Today, nearly 92% of organizations are either completely or partially in the cloud [1]. Cloud computing has made it possible for organizations to stay digitally connected. Besides, it has paved the way for new applications, platforms, services, and jobs. Since the cloud has multiple features, it has emerged as a valuable commodity in the IT world.
As the cloud continues to become more and more popular, we are going to look at some of the hottest cloud computing trends in 2021.
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Noteworthy Cloud Computing Trends
The advent of cloud computing has transformed the way businesses operate, and the trend is here to stay! Data centers are gradually turning into gold mines and an integral part of a company’s tech stack.
Here are some of the latest cloud computing trends that you should be aware of to stay ahead of your competitors. These trends will also enable you to create successful hybrid cloud strategies.
1. Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Will Witness a Steady Growth
Businesses are gradually identifying the best way to deal with cloud data management. Now, companies are finally recognizing that opting for cloud infrastructure or platform primarily depends on the primary requirements of the company.
In a lot of instances especially when organizations are tied to niche solutions for their business-critical solutions, the cloud may not be the right solution. Here, legacy or on-premise systems may fit in seamlessly.
However, things are gradually changing as enterprises are more open to getting multiple vendors onboard. Current trends indicate that hybrid or multi-cloud solutions are gaining considerable traction around the globe.
IDC confirms this in their recent report which states that around 90% of enterprises will depend on hybrid cloud solutions by the end of 2022 [2]. These hybrid cloud solutions are a mix and match of dedicated private clouds, legacy platforms, on-premise solutions, and various public clouds.
2. Compliance in a Rapidly Growing Complex Environment
If your company wants to be a part of this trend, you need to adapt to a vendor-agnostic approach and explore different SaaS solutions. When you tap into different SaaS platforms, you should ideally be looking to eliminate blind spots or bottlenecks.
It is critical to have a clear view across a heterogeneous environment, as it will ensure that companies can attain the same degree of insight across the board.
If you fail to achieve this, your intellectual property and data are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and pose major hurdles for compliance and internal governance. In the current scenario, data security and privacy are the two major roadblocks that are hindering the adoption of enterprise cloud solutions.
3. Companies are Prioritizing Cloud Savings
Gartner says that global revenue from the public cloud increased by an impressive 17% in 2020 [3]. Further, it stated that a whopping 60% of companies will opt for an external cloud vendor’s managed services by the end of 2020 [4], which is almost two times more than 2018. These figures indicate that the cloud computing market is growing at a remarkable rate and is expected to maintain this momentum in the near future.
However, this decentralized model of consumption comes at a cost, which is why companies are likely to prioritize cloud savings. A lot of firms are looking into getting rid of duplicate spendings, unneeded overheads, and streamlining expenditure as their cloud usage grows.
4. Demand for Third-party Vendors is Growing
We are seeing more and more businesses move their infrastructure using IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS. SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS, which is better for your business? If you are looking for answers, you can check out our article that explains the difference between all three cloud solutions.
Another trend that has caught our attention is the growing demand for third-party vendors whose expertise lies in resolving cloud challenges. We are likely to see more companies opt for a model wherein cloud providers will cater to the requirements of the cloud infrastructure, and a third party will be responsible for networking and compute.
5. Personalized Tech Solutions to Gain Traction
Looking at the past tech trends, the cost of new technologies tends to dwindle over a period of time. Similarly, as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing mature, the costs are likely to move in the downstream direction.
Meanwhile, companies are also finding new ways to keep the costs under control. As companies are likely to have more revenue at their disposal, the demand for personalized tech solutions will grow in the future.
Besides, software companies along with cloud providers are increasingly emphasizing on the development of low-code solutions that have a short learning curve. This means that organizations do not have to build specialized teams to reap the benefits of AI, automation, and machine learning solutions in a tangible way.
What Are the Other Cloud Computing Trends We Might See in the Future?
Cloud technology has well and truly made its mark across the global corporate sector. As companies of all sizes continue to find value in the cloud, it is fair to say that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.
With the cloud, businesses can make use of infrastructure and gain access to resources that they could have never managed before.
Another major trend that we are likely to see in 2021 and beyond is the increasing focus on tackling compliances and security. Besides, we will also see companies joining hands with innovative and modern external vendors to manage networking and computing infrastructure.
Let’s face it, as far as cloud computing goes, we are not far away from seeing a fully hybrid cloud environment.
What are your thoughts on cloud computing? What do you think the future holds for new cloud computing technologies? What are the challenges your firm is currently facing? We would love to hear your thoughts!
SEE ALSO: 6 Best Platform as a Service (PaaS) Solutions of 2021
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Sources:
[1] Knorr. E (2020) “The 2020 IDG Cloud Computing Survey” InfoWorld [online] Available from: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3561269/the-2020-idg-cloud-computing-survey.html [accessed September 2021}
[2] (2020) “IDC Expects 2021 to Be the Year of Multi-Cloud as Global COVID-19 Pandemic Reaffirms Critical Need for Business Agility” IDC [online] Available from: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prMETA46165020 [accessed September 2021]
[3] [4] (2019) “Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Public Cloud Revenue to Grow 17% in 2020” Gartner [online] Available from: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-11-13-gartner-forecasts-worldwide-public-cloud-revenue-to-grow-17-percent-in-2020 [accessed September 2021]
