By Nikhil Rathi, Founder & Director, Web Werks India
In the current digital age, we have experienced data explosions and cloud computing technologies have garnered prominence as one of the most discussed technological advancements of the era. In addition to the important role it plays in both life and work, it’s most important features include being a highly reliable, scalable, durable and cost-effective solution in comparison to building and maintaining large on-site IT systems. Cloud computing, the most popular notion in IT today, has thus, changed the face of the way businesses work and will continue to shape our lives in the decades to come.
The recent pandemic crises impacted and altered lives and disrupted businesses on an unprecedented scale. Work from home policies, the use of CDN tools for meetings, the surge in data consumption due to gaming and OTT has all caused leveraging the cloud to accomplish various goals. In fact, with cloud based technologies responsible for more than half of the total IT spend, cloud computing is now at the forefront of all technologies leading businesses across the globe.
As part of the lessons learned, businesses today are now undergoing a complete transformation with moving most of their digital infrastructures and equipment to the cloud. This has enhanced company operations, along with helping it to adapt to emerging technologies and newer platforms. Thus with cloud now moving from a luxury to a basic utility service, understanding the upcoming trends in cloud technologies becomes crucial to organizations trying to benefit from it.
Regardless of the mode of operation, three types of cloud services will most likely be in high demand in the post pandemic stage. They include serverless computing, federated identities and, clustered containers. Serverless computing is emerging as a new, compelling and dynamic paradigm of cloud technology. It provides higher scalable and productive solutions for cloud computing. It is also cost-effective as businesses do not have to rely on an individual server and can follow a pay-as-you-go model. Many public cloud providers now offer serverless for containers, databases, and artificial intelligence. A cost-effective and productive solution, it is expected to face higher demands in the post-COVID era.
Federated Identity- a centralized identity management is the best way to approach cloud computing security, given the distributed nature of cloud resources and applications. Federated security covers all computing devices, users and storage resources under one domain of control. This approach is highly secure and flexible and helps to adapt to a new market opportunity or global crisis thus enhancing business operations and placing organizations on a growth trajectory.
Clustered containers include a container orchestration system that helps scaling, deployment and management of applications in a cloud environment much easier. It is one of the reasons why clustered containers like Kubernetes are facing high demand these days. This provides much flexibility while moving from cloud to cloud and would be a very effective tool in crisis management.
Bandwidth, perception loss of control, trust and feasibility were challenges associated with cloud computing in the past. Surviving a crisis can make or break a business and crisis planning is very important for every business to successfully tackle this period of transition. Managing core operations and staff communications while ensuring business response and keeping revenue streams open even through remote working is now expected to be the most sought after trend in the post-pandemic era. In fact with location independence, connection becomes the key and preparing one’s business to deal with these changes is paramount to organizational success. Unplanned interruptions, leading to a loss of access to information could result in huge revenue losses. Thus preparedness becomes crucial in defending ones organization from disasters such as these. On the contrary, not having a plan reduces the odds of survival to less than 50%.
Cloud based business continuity and recovery practices become a powerful ally in defending one’s business from these unknown crises. With an increase in demand and a supply shortage, the chances of a price rise are most likely which now makes foresight to move before one has to becomes the key. Regardless of whether COVID-19 becomes part of the list of regular or common illnesses, or it disappears, a ‘new normal’ is likely. With easy access, scalability, durability and, newer technologies as services, cloud based technologies foster a culture of preparedness, responsiveness and innovation.
While the end of the pandemic remains elusive, choosing the right cloud service provider to meet the basic as well as the more complex and dynamic needs of the organization is pivotal to accomplishing organizational goals through the cloud. While cost is one of the basic features, some of the more important considerations include security, compliance, manageability, architecture, service levels and support. It’s crucial to find a cloud computing platform that is reliable and meets all the needs of one’s growing business. For example, surveys suggest that more than 90% of businesses follow a multi-cloud strategy due to a lack of trust in a single cloud provider.
When considering cloud, understanding the time and cost consumption of such technology through data physics is important. Most companies will have to deal with extra costs particularly during a crisis period as they move to remote working options that need more cloud resources and virtual machines. It could also result from overestimating needs and keeping unused cloud resources running for extra hours.
A business should be familiar with the latest development taking place in Cloud technology. This would ensure making the right decisions in the deployment of cloud technology to enable organizations reap the benefits of achieving the competitive advantage of a flexible, scalable, high speed, error reduced, and environmentally friendly application solution. The cloud services industry is here to stay and grow exponentially due to the many advantages it provides. Investing in a cloud services model will give business solid providers with robust solutions to choose from to help reach business goals.
