Cloud Computing: Experts Predict What’s Coming Next in the Business League

Today almost every organization has adopted cloud computing technology into their ecosystem to secure the services simply and rapidly. The inevitable rise the technology raises a question that how will on-demand IT will evolve through the next ten years?

Some say that the cloud should be used as a platform for innovation, some say the focus should be on developing localized cloud services. Whereas some experts have quite a different opinion – 'Consider how online will be the default setting for business operations' or 'Keep an eye on the developing capability of staff and providers.'

Below are the views of 4 different industry experts on the rising planet of the cloud.

Gregor Petri

•   Gregor Petri is Research Vice President at Gartner.

•   He believes that CIOs who are looking forward to embracing the cloud should go beyond lifting and shifting prevailing tech-applications.

•   They should concentrate on disruption instead of thinking about the cloud as a space that runs present applications.

•   Petri said, "Focus on a much more applied level of functionality. Look for areas where you can use the cloud as a platform to create unique functionality and special experience. Many of these experiences will be digital."

•   Further, he added, "And to do that, you need a slew of supporting services, like voice, search and databases and many of those will be best-supported by the cloud, rather than traditional hardware. Only do what you want to yourself as a business; consume the rest as a service."

•   He foresees the future of the cloud as a platform for innovation.

•   He asserted that CIOs will use on-demand IT resources as a platform to run emerging technologies including AI/ML and quantum computing.

•   Petri also said, "We'll be running lots of things in businesses we don't even have today. These are quite compute-intensive technologies and to get that resource on-premise is a big hurdle. These technologies will also be associated with bursts of activity, so not having to own hardware is attractive."

Alex von Schirmeister

•   Alex von Schirmeister is Chief Digital, Technology and Innovation Officer at RS Components.

•   Talking about his firm he said, "The cloud gives my firm service flexibilities and cost efficiencies that were previously unavailable."

•   Schirmeister believes that CIOs thinking of moving to the cloud in the future will anyway encounter non-IT executives who believe embracing on-demand IT pinned with business risk.

•   He says "If a large cloud-based service goes down, it can wipe out the operational activities of entire companies or even industries. Compliance is also a concern for executives, especially when it comes to the General Data Protection Regulation and the geographical location of data."

•   As governments trying to legislate for the storage and use of data, the regulatory guidelines of running cloud arrangements are expected to increase in the future.

•   As an impact of such continuous legislation, CIOs should consider building much more localized services.

•   Alex said, "I do think there will increasingly be a notion where various companies start looking at private clouds or virtual clouds that are contained within certain boundaries and barriers. It may be a cloud but it may sit in a specific region or country, but we'll continue to see an evolution in the form of cloud technology."

Kevin Curran

•   Kevin Curran is Professor of Cybersecurity at Ulster University and Senior IEEE, member.

•   He believes that the definition of the cloud is 'a scalable foundation for the elastic use of infrastructure which has served a useful purpose in the initial move on demand.'

•   Considering the changes in the business industry CIOs should recognize the new definition of the cloud which means bucking up for a future where what goes online stays online.

•   Kevin said, "Currently, most things are offline by default but being online and connected will become the default for everything. This points to a future where every device will simply connect to the cloud. 5G will support this – it might be fast, but it's most impressive feature is its enormous capacity."

•   He further said, "The cloud will be the foundation of devices that use data at the edge of the network and AI will benefit as a result. We will experience more natural interactions with computers; a superintelligence. This resource combined with fast 5G will serve us with a powerful form of computing that was previously in the realm of science fiction."

Alex Hilton

•   Alex Hilton is Chief Executive of Not-for-Profit Industry Body Cloud Industry Forum.

•   Alex says that the speed of disruptive innovation is very major that any way to predict what the cloud might look like in the coming decade is meaningless.

•   CIOs continuous march will maintain the rate of transformation in the industry.

•   He said, "There is a distinct problem with the pace of change for most businesses. In truth, many organizations are not yet on the right trajectory. The constantly evolving technology landscape makes it very difficult for business leaders to move quickly, knowing which horse – in terms of cloud provider – to back."

•   Hilton asserted that his organization has witnessed big change during the last 10 years as the company tracked the shift of vendors to on-demand IT.

•   He believes that CIOs should keep an eye on both the skills of their internal IT teams and external cloud providers.

•   He said, "Successful companies will be those that embrace disruption – and that will be as true in the future for CIOs as it is for cloud providers."

•   He further added, "Technology skills shortages around the cloud are evident and many of the success stories are from companies who deliver disruptive new ways of thinking or addressing a business need. The providers with foresight and the willingness to invest and be agile will be the winners in the future."