Cloud computing is one of the key technologies that has had remarkable momentum over the past 10 years, and it’s only expected to grow further. New technologies, such as serverless and edge computing, are opening up new opportunities with the cloud, and accelerating the trend of digital transformation.

Here are a couple of predictions for the cloud as we head into 2020.

#1. Cloud security as the biggest challenge

In response to security concerns from businesses with growing compliance requirements, cloud platform and service providers will continue strengthening cloud security and reducing the likelihood of data breaches. They will do so by turning to IT experts and leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), predictive analysis, hardware encryption, biometric authentication methods, and remote security management.

Verizon jump-started this direction by acquiring Niddel, an ML-powered threat detection startup, to integrate the latter’s security solutions into its enterprise-class cloud services and systems.

#2. Cloud reinvention with edge computing

As Internet of Things (IoT) devices become more prevalent and more demanding of processing power, data processing will start moving from a central network server (with cloud computing) to an edge device (with edge computing).

Traditionally, in a cloud computing architecture, all data generated by IoT gadgets are relayed back to a centralized network server. Once that data is processed, further instructions will be sent back to IoT devices.

The problem with this setup is that it can take a while for data to travel back and forth, which could have serious consequences for extremely time-sensitive IoT gadgets such as self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles gather a tremendous amount of information from their surroundings and nearby devices, and their reaction is highly dependent upon the instructions from the central server. The slightest delay could literally be a matter of life and death.

Emerging edge computing technology solves this time delay problem by installing an edge server between the IoT gadget and the central server. By doing so, crucial data processing is redirected to edge servers, which are physically nearer to users, thus allowing near-instant data processing and response times.

But edge computing is not the end of cloud computing. It still cannot match the massive, scalable amounts of power and capacity that cloud computing has. Hence, cloud computing will continue to be a valuable resource, but edge computing will improve speed and lower connectivity costs by analyzing and filtering data and sending only the most important information to the cloud, as opposed to raw streams of it.

#3. Continued containerization

Moving forward, as more businesses use multi- and hybrid cloud infrastructures, we will see a wider adoption of cloud containers — a technology that allows developers to package their software’s code, configurations, and dependencies into a single object that behaves like a regular file and can easily be migrated and backed up to other cloud servers. This enables portability between different cloud servers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and Google Cloud, thus increasing developer speed and efficiency.

In fact, 451 Research forecasts a $2.7 billion annual growth in 2020 and more than $4.3 billion in 2022, which is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30%.

#4. Increasing adoption of serverless computing

While apps will still run on servers, “serverless” computing allows businesses to not worry about provisioning and maintaining servers while producing a code. Instead, cloud providers manage code execution, execute it only when needed, and only charge when the code is running.

Currently, available solutions lock customers to a specific cloud provider, but a growing number of open-source serverless options will soon pave the way for the mainstream adoption of serverless computing.

#5. Rising popularity of open source

More and more organizations will be integrating open-source software into their IT operations, with some even building entire businesses around it.

The cloud has provided a great ecosystem for open source to thrive. The growing number of open-source DevOps tools and the aggressive use of build automation and infrastructure platforms, such as OpenStack and Kubernetes, has made application delivery in the cloud easier than ever before.

Changing times demand businesses to constantly adapt

These cloud predictions only show that if businesses want to survive and even thrive in these modern times, they need to constantly stay on top of evolving technologies. But given the rapid pace and the growing complexity of IT evolution, New York-based companies will benefit much from working with Red Key Solutions. We’ll cover all your IT needs from cloud services to technology strategy to support to security so you can focus on running your business. Get a technology partner today!

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