Cloud computing has come a long way since it first emerged. It gained popularity in 1999 with the success of Salesforce, which was the first Software-as-a-Service solution. By the early 2000s, tech giants like Amazon and Google had created their own Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings to support developers in building applications. Soon, more and more cloud services were launched, such as Google Docs, iCloud, and Microsoft Azure.
At the height of the pandemic in 2020, cloud adoption skyrocketed as companies raced to enable remote work. Looking ahead to 2022, our IT experts at SpectrumWise have rounded up five of their predictions for the future of cloud computing.
Cloud security
Many companies leveraged the cloud during the pandemic, which resulted in an exponential increase in the volume of sensitive data stored in the cloud. Securing this data will be a top business priority in 2022. Companies will invest heavily in comprehensive cloud security solutions that can immediately detect and prevent threats.
Hybrid cloud computing
In 2022, many companies will have a hybrid cloud strategy, utilizing a mix of public and private clouds and/or on-premises IT resources that allows workloads to easily move between these platforms.
By adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, businesses can keep their IT costs down while tightening their security measures. For example, you can store most of your data in the public cloud but keep highly regulated information in a private environment so you can exercise greater control over where and how regulated data is stored.
Related reading: Public, private, and hybrid: Understanding confusing cloud jargon
Cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI)
Over the years, the amount of data that companies gather has grown tremendously. To gain more value from all of that data, companies will look into leveraging AI for data analytics. However, since many of them do not have the means or capacity to construct and manage their own AI infrastructure, they will use cloud-based AI to extract business insights.
Cloud gaming
In 2022, cloud gaming will become a dominant form of entertainment. Cloud gaming refers to the delivery of video games over the internet. In contrast to traditional console gaming, cloud gaming does not require any hardware on the user’s part. Gamers simply need a device that can connect to the internet and a subscription to a gaming service.
The popularity of cloud gaming is due in part to its convenience — gamers can play any game on any device without having to worry about compatibility issues. In addition, cloud gaming services often offer a library of games that is much larger than what is available on traditional consoles.
We expect the popularity of cloud gaming to lead to more cloud gaming providers, as well as greater demand for high-speed internet connections.
Edge computing
Edge computing will continue to gain momentum in 2022, with its global market expected to reach $10.9 billion by year end. Multiple edge computing start-ups have emerged in recent years, so we can expect them to introduce new applications and use cases for edge computing soon.
Edge computing describes a distributed IT architecture where data processing and storage take place closer to the source of information collection, which is opposed to how centralized cloud architectures process and store data. This improves performance and reduces latency, thus solving the issues that many companies experience when dealing with large volumes of data.
Edge computing will not completely replace cloud computing. Instead, it will complement cloud computing by covering for some of the latter’s shortcomings. In particular, edge computing will be used to handle time-sensitive data and process large amounts of real-time data.
Turn to SpectrumWise for all of your cloud computing needs. When you work with us, you gain access to cloud specialists, high-end IT resources, and geo-redundant data centers for an affordable, fixed monthly fee. Schedule a consultation with us today.
