By Rahul S Kurkure, Founder and Director of Cloud.in
In the past twelve months, we have witnessed a paradigm shift in the cloud technology domain. This shift has taken businesses to greater heights by transforming the digital landscape where the adoption of Cloud computing has become imperative for business operations today. Embraced across the retail, FMCG, life sciences, and healthcare industries, the global cloud computing market is expected to grow from USD 626.4 billion in 2023 to USD 1,266.4 billion by 2028. India is among the fastest-growing markets for the adoption of cloud computing solutions as managing workloads in the cloud has brought about several benefits. As we begin to bid goodbye to 2023, let us delve into the trends that defined the cloud computing space in 2023.
Rise in Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Solutions
More and more organisations adopted multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud business strategies this year as they recognised the need. The hybrid cloud approach integrates the usage of public cloud services with private cloud services and the on-premise infrastructure for any specific organisation. The benefits of this included better scalability, enhanced agility, and cost reduction. Multi-cloud strategies gained traction where multiple clouds such as two or more private clouds or two or more public clouds are leveraged to avoid vendor lock-in and for better reliability, security, and flexibility. Multi-cloud approach also reduced system server errors thereby eliminating critical failure of business operations.
Cloud Cost Optimisation became a Top Priority
Several cloud cost optimisation tools such as NetApp and Splunk were leveraged where there was a significant average per-month cloud cost savings. As budget pressures and cloud adoption increased several organisations opted to save money and get more out of their cloud budgets. Optimising costs was also made possible by eliminating redundant, or unused cloud infrastructure. By leveraging cloud optimisers, DevOps teams could save time and focus on generating new codes. Furthermore, with improved visibility better cloud utilisation was brought about which provided the necessary environment for innovation. FinOps, the proactive system developed within the organisation to manage cloud costs became the leading cloud computing trend.
AI-ML-powered Cloud Services increased
AI-ML technologies were increasingly used by businesses and users across all geographic locations. The year saw an increase in AI and ML getting integrated within cloud services making the technologies core components of cloud computing. Many cloud providers embedded AI and ML services into their offerings, thereby helping to extract valuable insights. This democratised AI making it more accessible to organisations of all sizes levelling the playing field for small businesses as well. Several organisations have their AI capabilities through cloud-based software and AI applications are created using cloud services, thus both these technologies impact each other in numerous ways. They also converge in automating processes such as data analysis, security, and decision-making. Some examples of AI-based applications in the cloud are IoT, Business Intelligence, and Chatbots among others.
Edge Computing leveraged extensively
Organisations across verticals were in an AI race to enhance productivity and efficiency besides improving performance. Cloud providers increased investments in edge computing technologies to accelerate and scale AI delivery. It was also leveraged to lower computing costs. There was an increase in cross-border businesses with distributed user bases that hosted latency-intensive apps and services at the edge of the network. However, edge computing also increased the attack surface with organisations getting concerned about ransomware attacks at the edge.
Cloud Security took Priority
With multi-cloud environments gaining further traction complexities involved in managing them increased and they faced higher security risks as well. Insecure cloud infrastructure led to data breaches and security challenges. The exposed APIs led to the provision of unauthorised access prompting organisations to shift to proactive cybersecurity strategies such as XDR, blockchain, and others. As a greater number of organisations increased their reliance on cloud services security became a serious concern. This year, an increased number of cloud providers invested heavily in enhancing security measures which included threat detection capabilities, advanced encryption, identity and access management, and more. With regulatory bodies implementing more stringent measures, organisations also had to focus on compliance and regulatory adherence to avoid penalties.
Convergence of Quantum Computing and Cloud Services
2023 saw quantum computing entering the cloud. Several cloud providers were seen offering quantum computing capabilities, by providing access to the resources for complex computations. It is a leap in technology and is expected to reinvent the limits of computational power. Although this technology is in its infancy, the potential of quantum computing is vast and by converging with cloud services, it is poised to bring in a new era of computing possibilities.
Earlier, access to quantum computers was considered an exclusive privilege limited to research institutions and tech majors, but today due to the democratising influence of cloud technology, access to quantum computing is undergoing a sea change.
Cloud providers such as IBM, AWA, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are granting access to quantum computers without any need for customised hardware.