Top 3 Cloud Computing Trends And Their Implications For IT Support
The future of work is a “cloudy” one indeed, as cloud computing continues to be one of the hottest tech innovations that is transforming the world of business. Today, more than 79% of companies use the cloud to host workloads and infrastructures that run their business – and with good reason. Moving to the cloud has offered organisations the flexibility to scale with their target market, while paying lower costs for infrastructure.
These benefits aren’t specific to any industry, but in this post, we’ll take a look at the latest trends in cloud computing and how they’ll affect the IT support industry.
1. Cloud Services Solutions & Storage Capacity Will Rise
As more and more companies hop in the cloud, the cost of cloud services such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (PaaS) will continue to be lower due to increasing competition in the market. As costs become more affordable, storage capacity will continue to increase, which will benefit both large companies (more space for bigger data sets for analytics) and small businesses (more affordable and flexible rates for storage space).
2. The IoT Will Supersede The Internet Of Things
There’s no doubt the Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionised the world. But while the number of interconnected devices keeps on increasing, there’s an element that is yet to be connected: the people. That’s what the Internet of Everything (IoT) aims for—to include humans in this interconnected network. This means that more innovations will focus on improving interactions not only between machines, but also between businesses and consumers. One early example of this is Google’s Pixel Buds, which could allow support agents to have a conversation with a customer who’s using a different language in real time.
3. Cloud Becomes Synonymous With Security
Unlike its early days when many businesses doubted its reliability, cloud computing will be synonymous with security now, as most, if not all, cloud solutions in the market will come offered with high-security standards by default. This will make it harder for cybercriminals to hack your consumer data, which, in turn, makes your business much more trustworthy to consumers.
What’s Next?
As cloud computing continues to innovate, expect more business functions to be packaged into a cloud offering, until such a time that only your core business operations are being done in-house. All other administrative functions like HR, management, etc. could be outsourced for a lower rate yet higher quality. In the meantime, businesses in the IT support industry are looking at a bright future ahead, as these trends continue to innovate the way they do business.
How Cloud Computing Is Changing organizations
With cloud, information travels rapidly in both directions, across computing systems that, with attributes like virtualization, scaling up or down to handle bigger workloads, or automated security patching across thousands of machines, are far more flexible. This will likely mean a more flexible work structure as well, in the interest of products and services that ideally can be adjusted to anticipate customer needs. Key to the new system are rapid data collection and analysis, followed by over the air changes to product software.
Likely outcomes of the move to cloud include changing how products are designed; closer collaboration between the corporate IT department and other business units, including sales, finance and forecasting; and more customer interaction, even to a point of jointly developing products with their consumers. In particular, new ways of writing and deploying software will encourage new types of faster-acting organizational designs. And the best way to anticipate how these changes will occur is to hear from companies already aggressively implementing them.
“It’s already changing organizations, by moving IT from a cost center to something with a place at the table in a lot of different meetings,” said Chris Jackson, head of cloud platforms at Pearson, a global learning company. If Pearson is looking at, say, a new online learning course, Mr. Jackson is part of early product design meetings, offering tips on what user interaction data should be collected, how, and how often a course might be tweaked. A job like his used to be concerned only with things that happened later in the process, like launching and maintaining a piece of software.
Public cloud computing, offered by companies like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and my employer, Google Cloud, is still viewed by many as a cheaper and more efficient way for companies to store and process data. The cost may be lower, but like traditional computers, it is still a cost.
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