What Cloud Computing Is and How It Will Affect YOU

What Cloud Computing Is

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing where services like servers, storage, and applications are delivered to a company or organization's electronic devices through the Internet. Through cloud computing you can do a lot such as process, store or manage data. Basically you can store data on cloud instead of saving it on a computer's hard drive.

How Cloud Took Off

Cloud usage from 2010 became very prominent and organizations such as Amazon leading and Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Oracle following became important and popular with cloud services such as "Software as a Service" (SaaS), "Platform as a Service" (PaaS), and "Infrastructure as a Service" (IaaS). The public cloud industry also exploded with Apple's iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

Cloud These Days

These days cloud is almost a necessity. With the benefits of cloud such as flexibility, disaster recovery, collaboration tools, capital-expenditure free, work from anywhere, document control, security, etc. is one of the reasons why organizations choose to use the cloud. Approximately 1 billion GB's of data is currently stored in cloud. Also, 82% of the companies and organizations have saved money since switching to cloud. 75% of all businesses are currently using cloud computing in some form. 86% of businesses are using more than one cloud computing service.

Drawbacks of Cloud

• service availability
• data lock-in
• data confidentiality and audibility
• data transfer bottlenecks
• performance unpredictability
• scalable storage
• bugs in large-scale distributed systems
• scaling quickly
• reputation sharing
• software licensing

Future of Cloud

These days, as you know everything is depending on technology and all kinds of startups, companies, and organizations use the cloud, SaaS is growing at a 20.2% year-over-year growth rate. Also, adoption of the hybrid cloud will reach $241.13 billion by 2022 according to Infoholic Research. The Compound Annual Growth (CAGR) of cloud computing is increasing at about 34.3% (See figure 2). If it continues like this, in the future, not using cloud will be as rare as not using the internet these days.

Figure 1

Figure 2

The cloud will be as necessary as the internet is these days. The question is, how early?

Sources

"Where Will Cloud Computing Be in 2020?" ScholarsPro. N.p., 16 May 2016. Web. 14 July 2016. 

"The History of the Cloud." Onyx. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2016.

"Why Move To The Cloud? 10 Benefits Of Cloud Computing." Salesforce UK Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2016.

Statista

Infoholic Research