What are the cloud trends to look out for in 2021? With the pandemic’s onset in 2020, the business world has seen a significant shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure. While incorporating digitalization into IT assets, businesses optimize cloud technology for sophistication, scalability, and security.
Beyond the well-known cloud benefits, the coming years will shed light on capabilities such as seamless collaboration, hybrid cloud power, service provider potential, and practical applications for IoT, AI, Blockchain, and other technologies.
We’ve created a comprehensive list of cloud trends for 2021 and beyond to help you get the most of this technology.
1. Multi and Hybrid Cloud Environments:
The first cloud trend to look out for is multi and hybrid cloud environments. Businesses recognize that cloud data management isn’t about having a single cloud platform or infrastructure; it’s about selecting the best solution for the job. It could be on-premises or even legacy systems in some circumstances, especially if businesses are bound into specific systems for business-critical solutions that are tedious or complex to adapt.
More organizations will develop cloud-native applications in the future, with little to no architecture relying on a single cloud provider. Organizations will learn to grow with more clarity than before by cultivating a deeper understanding of their cloud needs and the cloud industry. However, this paradigm change depends on the development of cloud capabilities, as time-to-market is improving rapidly and the ability to incorporate changing workloads allows enterprises to capitalize on even minor trends.
According to Global Channel Chief at Google, Carolee Gearhart, “Gartner is estimating that by 2021, 75 percent of midsize and large organizations will have adopted multi-cloud or a hybrid strategy.” IDC affirms this in their 2021 report, stating that by 2022, over 90% of enterprises will be relying on a hybrid cloud solutions model that includes on-prem, dedicated private clouds, multiple public clouds, AND legacy platforms.
2. Hybrid cloud:
A hybrid cloud approach categorically focuses on taking advantage of both the private and public cloud. In contrast, a multi-cloud strategy leverages the differing allowances of different providers—regardless of public or private cloud.
Businesses can get the best of both worlds with a well-balanced hybrid strategy. They may scale further and faster due to the public cloud’s creative and adaptable services without sacrificing the higher cost efficiency, faster response time, and regulatory compliance with the private cloud’s advantages.
3. Software as a Service (SaaS):
One of the first and most successful ‘as a service’ cloud services is Software as a Service (SaaS). It includes all internet services and software provided by a third party in exchange for subscriptions and licensing fees. SaaS now adds $20 billion to software manufacturers’ quarterly revenues as one of the biggest cloud application offerings. Each year, the number is predicted to increase by 32%.
Competition between SaaS companies has resulted in a wide range of low-cost solutions, ensuring that public cloud services will continue to dominate the industry for years to come.
4. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) has been since the dawn of cloud computing, but its full potential has yet to be realized. Because of a documented talent gap in the cloud migration process, businesses have been slow to adopt this technology. This up-and-coming cloud solution is predicted to eventually overtake SaaS in revenue, thanks to increased cloud education and understanding borne of necessity.
Pay-as-you-go services for storage, networking, and virtualization are referred to as IaaS. Many businesses have taken the path of least resistance when it comes to cloud migration, opting for a ‘lift and shift’ approach rather than altering their workflows to make the most of the cloud. Organizations have learned that to compete, they must modernize processes, invest in cloud-native development, and refactor apps to achieve proper cloud optimization.
5. Cloud monitoring:
Cloud coalitions, machine learning, and data fabrics allow the cloud industry to fine-tune one of its most essential components: monitoring. Companies are now faced with the problem of consolidating metrics on their numerous cloud servers to provide monetizable insights, as they face pressure to transfer workloads to the cloud quickly. Between 2020 and 2026, the cloud monitoring industry is expected to increase at a rate of 22.7 percent annually, valuing the industry at $4.5 billion.
How can we help you?
Getting the most out of your cloud services requires a commitment to change and agility. These many tendencies are native to the cloud, and they will continue to evolve at a quicker rate as cloud adoption grows and the cloud is tuned to give clearer insights.
By leveraging the expertise and knowledge of the industry, tracking and analyzing these trends will help your company open doors. As the world embraces cloud services, these doors will become increasingly important for long-term growth in 2021 and beyond.
We’ll update these trends up to current as of the industry changes, ensuring that you’ll never be alone in this huge digital landscape of highly diverse architectures. The cloud is the way of the future. When you’re ready to take flight, contact us!
