Which Way Will The Cloud Blow In 2014?
I have spoken or shall I say written a lot about the practical side of adopting cloud technology. I decided to take a break from this practice and delve on the future of cloud in 2014 and what will drive this phenomenon.
Social is becoming big and the cloud is drifting towards it
Everyone is trying to be a Facebook. I am not talking about small guys but even big players like Microsoft, IBM and cronies are looking for acquisition in this space. Not that Facebook is raking in the money – it’s not. But the attraction for this big companies is not the money they would make from it but to stitch their numerous offerings together with the thread of social interaction. Obviously this can only happen along with the growth of cloud technology. Therefore I would predict that Social platforms will blow the Cloud quite strongly.
Big Data means Big Bucks
According to an IDC report for 2013, the digitized world would be around 4ZB in size, which they claim is an understatement. Digital Data capture and storage has seen phenomenal growth in the past few years. Not only is the volume of data humongous but the technology to analyze data is galloping at a tremendous speed. Online marketing is shifting towards discovering and predicting future trends which means crunching data at an extremely high rate. All this would require huge cloud infrastructure because traditional storage would cost exorbitantly. Big data therefore directly correlates with the size of Cloud infrastructure. Big data would bring in better efficiency in cloud management and related technologies.
SaaS as a driver for Cloud infrastructure growth
Software as a service has seen dramatic advances in 2013. End users and commercial enterprises have realized the advantages consuming software as a service rather than as a product. I will not go into the details of SaaS but only emphasize the fact that SaaS to be successfully implemented requires robust infrastructure and the cloud is perfectly suited to meet these requirements. Numerous reports suggest that big SaaS players would acquire an existing Cloud infrastructure vendor or develop their own. Either way the total size of the cloud would expand to support various SaaS offerings.
Games and Animation Industry
More and more traditional games platforms are moving into the cloud. Games are consuming higher amount of memory, both for storage and for rapid deployment. Massively multi-player online games require enormous amount of storage and this thirst can only be fulfilled by adding to the available cloud infrastructure.
With all of these in mind the gaming industry should consider a Cloud vendor that can flexibly expand and contract their system configuration. GMO Cloud America, Inc offers such game server which is also capable in handling sudden heavy traffic.
The online animation industry has till now been in the shadows. Development and distribution of animation sequences requires high capacity and high speed networks which were hitherto not available. The technology related to cloud infrastructure including network is becoming sophisticated and likely to support delivery of animation products at high speed.
Conclusion
I can come up with many more products and services which directly impact on the growth of Cloud infrastructure. The ones I have mentioned are likely to have a greater impact on IaaS.
Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation
Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
About the Guest Author:
Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.
