Cloud Hyperscalers are key players?in Cloud 3.0?in driving this evolution of cloud computing. They are providing next generation cloud platforms that have distributed and heterogeneous infrastructure, intelligent and adaptive cloud services, and seamless and secure cloud integration. Their heavy investment in the development of secure and sophisticated hardware and software provides scalable?computing, networking, and data storage services. Their global scale, expertise, and innovation take cloud services and value to the next level.?In the previous post Cloud 3.0: The Future of Cloud Computing and What We Want to See
, we looked into what we would expect to see the next genertion of cloud computing. In this regards, following are some of the key aspects that we can expect from Cloud Hyperscalers - ?
1. Bring More innovation and differentiation:
Apparently, Hyperscalers will constantly innovate and launch new services and features to meet the needs and expectations of their customers. They will continue to?bring differentiation, focusing on their strengths and niche areas. For example, AWS’s breadth and depth of services, Azure hybrid cloud capabilities and integration with Microsoft products, and Google Cloud AI/ML and analytics offerings; are well known. Some differentiating advancements that are likely to be seen in this space are -?
- Offering?industry-specific cloud solutions?- cloud solutions and applications designed for a specific industry, like healthcare, retail, government, or life science; that can automate manual tasks and shift the focus to competitive differentiation.?These solutions are for various industries’ unique needs, use cases, and content storage, processing, auditing, and securing requirements. Few examples - AWS for Health, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, Google Cloud for Retail, and IBM Cloud for Financial Services. ?
- Redefine?mobile telecommunications networks?- by providing network connectivity and the infrastructure to ensure the appropriate SLAs as required by service providers. Partnering with?network equipment providers?that can provide end-to-end solutions for 5G and beyond, such as radio access network (RAN), core network, edge computing, and network slicing etc. Few examples - AWS Wavelength, AWS Private 5G, Microsoft Azure for Operators, and Google Cloud Anthos for Telecom,?
- Augment space/satellite communication and sky computing -?by helping satellite operators and users to optimize their operations, enhance their connectivity, and deliver innovative applications. Partnering with satellite equipment providers and launch providers to provide end-to-end solutions for space-based infrastructure, such as satellites, rockets, antennas, and ground stations. Few examples – AWS Ground Station, Microsoft Azure Orbital, Google Cloud Orbitera, and IBM Cloud Satellite.?
2. Bring More collaboration and competition:
Hyperscalers along with competing for market share and customer loyalty, they can collaborate?for interoperability and compatibility. For example, AWS partnered with VMware to offer VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure partnered with Oracle to offer Azure-Oracle Cloud Interconnect, Google Cloud partnered with Cisco to offer Cisco Hybrid Cloud Platform. These partnerships enable customers to leverage the best of both worlds and avoid vendor lock-in.
- Enable interoperable open SDK?- Since most of cloud providers services are similar, it would be great to bridge the gaps on interoperability and integration of cloud-native services. This will allow customers to use common code and libraries for developing and deploying cloud applications and services across different cloud platforms and locations. ?
- Provide open frameworks and standards – provide open-source frameworks and tools to support hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and support to common open standards and protocols, and interoperable APIs that could enable?seamless integration, interoperability and data exchanges between different cloud native applications and services.?
- Enable unified cloud automation – using single platform or toolset to automate and manage cloud operations across hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge environments; will reduce complexity, cost, and risk by providing consistent governance and operations management practices for different cloud providers. Hyperscalers can?enable customers to integrate, orchestrate, and monitor their cloud resources across different platforms and locations.?
- Enable seamless data transfer - that allows customers to move, store, and analyze data across different cloud platforms and locations.?Support data integration and interoperability standards and protocols that enable seamless data exchange and collaboration between different cloud applications and services.?
- Eliminate Data?Egress Charges – most cloud providers charge for data egress in most situations, which can result in high and unexpected bills for customers. Data egress is charged when customers move data out of cloud providers platforms or between regions or availability zones within the same cloud provider.?
- Enable Shared Security Model - that allows customers to share the responsibility of securing their cloud environments with the cloud service providers (CSPs). This could be possible by offering security services and tools that help customers secure their cloud applications and data, such as identity and access management, firewall, antivirus, backup, encryption, and monitoring.?
3. Bring More sustainability and responsibility:
Cloud operations have environmental and social impacts; as it consumes a lot of energy and generates a lot of carbon emissions. With the recent announcements and new services offered, it has been apparent that hyperscalers are taking steps to reduce their environmental footprint and increase their social contribution. For example, AWS committed to achieving 100% renewable energy usage by 2025, Azure committed to becoming carbon negative by 2030, Google Cloud committed to operating on carbon-free energy by 2030. These commitments demonstrate the cloud hyperscalers’ responsibility and leadership in creating a more sustainable and inclusive future.?
- Transparency and control to sustainability - by offering various services and solutions that allow customers to measure, reduce, and offset their carbon emissions from using cloud services. ?
- Provide tools and dashboards - that help customers collect, analyze, and visualize their sustainability data from cloud usage, such as carbon emissions, energy consumption, water usage, and waste generation. ?
- Offering renewable energy options and credits - that help customers power their cloud workloads with clean energy sources and support green projects. Customers can monitor and compare the environmental impact of different cloud regions and services.?
- Integrated sustainability reporting by offering various services and solutions that allow customers to measure, report, and communicate their sustainability performance and impact from using cloud services.?
- Enabling customers to share and disclose - their sustainability information with various stakeholders, such as investors, regulators, customers, and employees, through different channels and platforms.?
The hyperscalers are the font-runners in?enabling the next generation of cloud services, called Cloud 3.0, which focus on innovation, differentiation, and value creation. The features and capabilities that hyperscalers should offer to support Cloud 3.0, such as data portability, data governance, data integration, AI democratization, AI ethics, edge orchestration, edge security, cloud interoperability, cloud optimization, and cloud innovation; will set the stage for future generation cloud computing. ?
Refrences:
