Authored By: Shriram Pore, Vice President – Engineering at MSys Technologies
With cloud technologies gaining fast traction among businesses, we take a deep dive into exciting developments that are catching the attention of experts and users alike.
With global investment set to surpass the $1 bn mark in 2024, many interesting developments are knocking at the doors of the cloud computing segment. Experts, scholars, and practitioners are weighing in on these emerging trends and speculating on significant shifts that will shape the entire space in the coming years. Here’s a complete lowdown on the most prominent shifts that are likely to dominate the proceedings in the cloud space going ahead:
a) AI as a service: With fast growing influence of AI, businesses across the spectrum are increasingly enhancing their exposure to the technology. Cloud computing is emerging as a crucial enabler for AI adoption as it allows businesses irrespective of their size, revenue, and purchasing capacity to use the technology to garner superior results. Importantly what is boosting AI adoption is the AI-as-a-service model which allows firms to derive significant benefits of AI without actually owing the technology. This means that even without investing a heavy sum in AI, firms can benefit from the new-age capabilities of AI such as smart algorithms, predictive modeling, and large language models (LLMs) which are offered as a part of the cloud package.
b) Hybrid and Multi-cloud Strategies: A survey by Gartner found that overwhelmingly large 81% of organizations avail the services of two or more cloud providers for their computing needs. The strategy is found to offer the desired level of flexibility and convenience to users besides helping them to keep the cost factor in check. These multifaceted benefits are helping the popularity of hybrid and multi-cloud strategies and are expected to find favor with more companies in the coming years. However, the strategy is not without its share of challenges as integration of multiple cloud operators with legacy systems is a complex and time-consuming task that mandates specific expertise and attention to the entire process. Cloud Migrations hence is becoming not only a trend but the need of the hour, which helps keep cost optimized and performance derived whichever hyper-scaler does a better job.
c) Green Computing: Estimates project that up to 4% of the world’s total Greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the Information and Communication Technology Sector. This calls for a shift to green computing, a concept that firmly emphasizes the use of environmentally friendly practices in the technology domain. From designing and developing to implementing and disposing of technology devices and tools, green computing minimizes carbon footprints. It also aims to contain emissions by impressing upon stakeholders to source responsibly, use judiciously, and recycle efficiently. Thanks to its coverage of the entire value chain, the appeal of green computing is rising exponentially and is likely to reduce the harmful impact of the technology sector on the environment in the coming years. Open Compute Project is taking a lead in building grounds up cloud scale projects from Open Hardware designs to greener software development.
d) Edge Computing: With a solid growth projection of 15.7% CAGR, the segment of Edge computing is expected to reach $111.3 bn by the end of the year 2028. Many factors are enabling this growth with a major boost coming from the widening coverage of 5G networks, IoT devices, and applications sensitive to latency phenomenon. Cloud providers are now actively involved in moving their capabilities near data locations and by achieving higher levels of decentralization, it aims to decrease the cost of bandwidth, reduce latency, and improve performance on multiple parameters among others.
e) Quantum Computing: Touted to offer the next level of computing prowess, quantum computing can process tasks exponentially faster than classic models of computing. Based on the qubit, these extraordinary processing capabilities make quantum computing an ideal technology for handling large datasets and training complex AI models. Although the high-cost factor is still a challenge for the adoption of quantum computing, the ongoing research is likely to make the technology more affordable and hence more popular in the coming years.
f) No-Code/Low-Code Solutions: No-code/low-code has equipped firms with the convenience of developing complex programs, applications, and solutions without the need for technical expertise. In other words, the philosophy is revolutionizing businesses by allowing them to harness the power of technology by using a simple interface with visual drag-and-drop functionalities. By embracing no-code/low-code development, firms are not only making significant savings on cost but also cutting down on development time considerably.
g) Kubernetes and Docker: Considering among the crucial tools in the containerization ecosystem, Kubernetes and Docker are emerging as indispensable tools for firms across the globe. These open-source platforms allow organizations to manage their workload and services from a centralized location, thereby helping in the execution of the process and applications in a seamless manner. Especially in the case of cloud deployment, these technologies are proving instrumental in ensuring the success of cloud adoption, implementation, and control among target audiences. This is a building block towards microservices architectures, which enables scaling only the needed microservice based on the load rather than all as in a monolithic environment.
The transformative phase of Cloud Computing has just begun. The emerging trends discussed above are just a glimpse of the exciting developments that we all are likely to witness in the cloud space in the near future. The best thing is that all these trends are likely to make the cloud industry more appealing, cost-effective, and technologically efficient, thereby helping it to deliver superior experiences to target audiences. In sum, transformational change is on the horizon in the cloud computing space and it’s just a matter of time before we start witnessing these trends becoming a mainstay of cloud technology.
