The future of Cloud computing
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In order to be able to fully discuss what awaits us in the future and what technologies we can expect when it comes to the development of cloud computing, it is worth to start by learning a very short history of this technology so that you can understand the process of change that is currently taking place.
Short history of Cloud computing.
In order to understand the idea of cloud computing well, it is also worthwhile to introduce a little bit of its history.
We will start the story in 1996, although the history began much earlier, because the origin of this technology can be found as early as in the 60s of the last century, which is related to Licklider’s vision of “intergalactic computer network” or the history of IBM (virtualisation operating systems). Our history, however, is much better to begin in the 90s, because this is where the first steps closely related to the concept of cloud computing begin.
In short, we will present here some selected events that influence how cloud computing looks today.
1996 – The term “cloud computing” was used for the first time.
The term is used for the first time this year in an internal document of Compaq company, which presents possible technologies, including cloud storage[1]. A year later this term was used by Ramanth Chellappa (a professor at the University of Texas) and he is often cited as an author of the definition of this technology[2].
1999 – SalesForce launches Salesforce.com
This is considered to be one of the major steps in developing this technology. SalesForce launches Salesforce.com and become a leader in delivering SaaS service solutions[3].
2002 – Amazon Web Services is created
The current leader in the market for cloud services was created in 2002 with the idea of providing services in a form where customers pay only for what they use. At the beginning, the service was fully free of charge[4].
2007 – A Dropbox is created
In 2007, Dropbox is being created and provides a storage service (the hosting service was called SpiderOak and allowed for online backups or cloud-based data sharing) for companies and individuals[5].
Over the next few years, other large platforms such as Google App Engine (2008), Microsoft Azure (2010), free Openstack platform (2010) and finally IBM SmartCloud (2011) were created.
Future of cloud computing
Cloud computing is still a relatively new technology and we can only now see that it is becoming more widely known to people that are not involved in IT sector. There is certainly a lot to achieve in the future, but already the numbers show how important this technology will be for development.
The cloud computing technology is called the technology of the future and it has a market value of over 266 billion dollars in 2019 and is expected to grow by 14.9% to 2027 (CARG -Compound Annual Growth Rate). Among the factors that are mentioned as those that can have an biggest impact on the development of this technology are often:
- Internet of Things (IoT)
- Edge computing
- 5G
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Machine Learning (ML)
IoT and Cloud computing can work together to produce significant benefits. Cloud computing in this purpose will be a place to collect huge databases that can later be analysed by IoT. Thanks to the high performance of cloud computing, it will be possible to get the results of, for example, analytical processes much faster.
Great potential for cloud computing development is also depend on 5G technology. It is extremely important because it provides incomparably more connections per km2 than its predecessor (LTE). The communication possibilities that are thus emerging are in line with Smart City idea.
A report prepared by RightScale shows that 81% of companies that employ more than 1000 employees have multi-platform strategy. This figure is projected to rise to 90 percentage points in 2024.
But undoubtedly this technology is developing at an incredible pace. Among the current trends in the development of it can be mentioned, for example, containerization, which involves dividing the application into parts (each piece of code is responsible for some specific function of the application, for example), which affects the quality and speed of work of the developers.
Among the possibilities that cloud computing will offer in the future, there is often mention ability for playing in the cloud. This would be a beneficial solution for many players who need to constantly update their hardware, which is a very expensive process, to be able to play new game titles. Although the first systems are already up and running, they are still far from perfect.
Another high-profile topic related to the future of the cloud is moving businesses to it. Businesses are increasingly using these solutions (especially those offered by hybrid clouds) and are moving their infrastructure to the cloud.
Cloud computing affects Industry 4.0 on many levels. Although this technology is still developing and is only beginning to change the way companies work, its positive effect is already being emphasized more and more often. Usually, when discussing its recommendations, it is emphasized how important this technology is for the development of AI and robotics. For both these technologies, cloud computing seems to be the foundation. An undoubted advantage of cloud is also the fact that it affects businesses of almost every type and size. Among the indicators of global success of Industry 4.0 it can be find information that the success (of I4.0) depends on the development of small and medium enterprises and their innovative capacity.
Cloud has many applications in Industry 4.0, including its contribution to planning and identifying trends through analysis of collected data. It’s contribution is to help optimize and improve processes, which will allow companies to better and faster response to changes. Under this idea you can also come across the concept of cloud manufacturing.
CMfg (cloud manufacturing) is a process that is designed to virtualise production and its processes and make information about them available for use. Thanks to this, data can be viewed and analyzed from any place. Cloud computing plays a very important role in this model and it is strongly supported by virtualization and IoT.
The future of cloud computing is exciting but also uncertain. Some people are saying it will end with the advent of edge computing (which is not true, there are many reasons to use both, there is no competition between these technologies). However, the development of the cloud is certainly closely related to the previously mentioned technologies such as IoT, machine learning or 5G. It is worth following new information because the revolution that cloud computing brings is big, and there are still countries in Europe that do not use its potential.
Challenges of using cloud computing
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In their book, John W. Rittinghouse and James F. Ransome wrote that the biggest challenges facing companies willing to use / already using cloud computing are standardization, ensuring data security and fast Internet access. Although technology development has already eliminated / reduced few of the challenges, some of them remained the same (as in the case of security). What challenges are we currently facing when it comes to cloud computing?
The first challenges that cloud computing invariably faces is security.
There is a report on cloud security called Cloud Security Report, which perfectly presents the concerns that cyber security professionals have about this technology. It shows that the biggest threat in cloud computing is misconfiguration of cloud platforms, and inappropriate control of access to data.
Among the concerns that Cybersecurity professionals mention are data loss, data leakage, privacy and confidentiality violations. In this study, as many as 90% of the respondents indicated that they have concerns about cloud computing security.
Another of the challenges that are mentioned in connection with the development of cloud computing is still a big lack of understanding of what cloud computing is, but also a lack of understanding of how to move the business to the cloud. This is particularly evident in the data provided by Eurostat, which shows how the number of businesses in European countries that use cloud computing services is currently presented in percentage terms. The statistics from this study show that in 2018, 26% of businesses in the EU used cloud computing (mainly for storing files and hosting email system). It’s still a small number. And although there are countries such as Finland (65.3%), Sweden (57.2%) or Denmark (55.6%), the average (26.2%) is still a small result.
Another challenge cloud computing faces, especially nowadays, is managing multiple clouds at once. Hybrid and multi-cloud structures are popular and most commonly used by enterprises, but along with this there are problems with how to manage such clouds effectively. A related challenge is also the problem of building a private cloud faced by IT administrators in a company.
Of course, there are many more challenges. People who are developing this technology are dealing with some and more appear in the meantime. However, it is worth noting that using the cloud is safe and you shouldn’t be worry of using it (as long as you take precautions).