Future of Cloud Computing Technologies

Abstract

Cloud computing technologies have emerged in the recent past as a new model/paradigm for hosting and delivering computing resources and services through the Internet. This paper discusses cloud computing technologies as a mechanism for improving business operations through offering computing resources/services via the Internet. This discussion includes an overview of cloud computing technologies, its benefits, and recent trends. This is followed by a discussion of speculations regarding the future of cloud computing technologies in light of the recent trends. The final segment of the paper demonstrates how the changes in cloud computing technologies affect purchase recommendations for clients. In this regard, the new considerations for clients when making purchase decisions for cloud computing technologies are discussed.
Keywords: cloud computing, technologies, clouds, multi-cloud, hybrid could strategy, IT professionals, trends, speculations, future.
Cloud Computing Technologies
Cloud computing has emerged as one of the paradigms for hosting and delivering services over the Internet. The emergence of cloud computing is attributable to the rapid developments of processing and storage technologies. Cloud computing is a technology in which resources are treated as general utilities that can be delivered through the Internet via an on-demand basis. However, despite the potential capabilities and benefits of cloud computing, its still in its infancy stages because of the numerous issues that still need to be addressed. As a result of the emerging issues, the future of cloud technologies has been an issue of concern to IT professionals. These professionals have attempted to determine the future of cloud computing based on its current issues, potential benefits, and areas of improvement. In light of recent trends, there are speculations that the future of cloud computing is multi-cloud and abstract virtual infrastructure.
Overview of Cloud Computing Technologies
Cloud computing technologies are new mechanisms for hosting and delivering services through the Internet (Zhang, Cheng & Boutaba, 2010). This new paradigm has become attractive to many businesses because it eliminates the need for users to engage in advance planning for pro-visioning. Additionally, cloud computing has gained significant traction in recent years because of its capability to enable businesses to increase resources through an on-demand basis regardless of the size of the enterprise. Cloud computing technologies emerged due to the fact that computer resources are increasingly becoming cheaper, available, and more powerful. However, cloud computing is not necessarily a new technology, but represents a new operations model through which different existing technologies are brought together to change business operations.
Since cloud computing is not a new technology, there are different perceptions relating to it, which has contributed to various definitions. One of the definitions of cloud computing is that it’s a model that allows convenient, on-demand network access to a wide pool of configurable computing resources that can be easily provisioned and released (Zhang, Cheng & Boutaba, 2010). Cloud computing is also defined as a new computing model through which computer resources are treated as general utilities that can the provisioned and released by users via the Internet and through an on-demand basis. In this regard, computer resources that are provided as general utilities include storage and CPU. Despite the different definitions, the basic understanding of cloud computing is that it’s a computing model that involves hosting and delivery of services via the Internet.
Cloud computing is link with some related technologies including grid computing, utility computing, autonomic computing, and virtualization (Shawish & Salama, 2014). Grid computing is defined as distributed computing paradigm that organizes networked resources for the achievement of a computational objective. On the other hand, utility computing refers to the model of offering resources on an on-demand basis and charging customers based on usage instead of a flat rate. Virtualization offers virtualized resources for high-level applications after abstracting physical hardware details while autonomic computing focuses on enhancing self-management capabilities.
Cloud computing operates through dividing the conventional role of service provider into infrastructure provider and service provider. Infrastructure provider manages cloud platforms and leases the required computer resources through a usage-based pricing model instead of a flat-rate pricing model. On the other hand, service providers lease resources from one or several cloud infrastructure providers and then avail them to serve end users. During this process, cloud computing leverages its related technologies to meet the technological and economic requirements of modern IT demands.
Benefits of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing technologies are increasingly adopted by business enterprises because of its potential benefits with regards to enhancing business operations. According to Pooja & Pandey (2014), cloud computing technologies have numerous benefits including pay-per-use facility, on-demand service, multi-tenancy, and device and location independency. In light of these benefits, cloud computing technologies have had significant impacts on the information technology sector. The huge impact is evident in the increased development and adoption of these technologies by large companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. These companies are increasingly striving to offer more potent, reliable, and cost-effective cloud platforms (Zhang, Cheng & Boutaba, 2010). The increased adoption of cloud computing technologies is attributable to efforts by business enterprises to transform their business models in order to maximize on the benefits of these technologies in their operations.
As previously indicated, cloud computing technologies are attractive to business enterprises because of its numerous potential benefits. Through its pay-per-use model, cloud computing is an attractive option to businesses because there are no up-front investments. In this regard, computer resources are rented from the cloud based on needs and payments made based on usage unlike other technologies that require up-front investments through a flat-rate pricing model. Given its usage-based pricing model, cloud computing technologies are associated with lower operating costs. The lower operating costs are also attributable to the fact that resources in these technologies can be easily allocated and de-allocated when needed. Additionally, cloud computing technologies are attractive because they are highly scalable. Providers of cloud computing infrastructure offer huge amounts of computer resources from data centers and make them readily available to users. The other benefit of cloud computing technologies for modern businesses is easy access since services hosted in these technologies are generally Internet-based. The final advantage/benefit of cloud computing is reduction of business risks and decreasing expenses associated with maintenance of technologies.
Future of Cloud Computing Technologies
While cloud computing has tremendous impact on the IT industry and numerous potential benefits for business enterprises, it’s still in its infancy stage. In this regard, cloud computing technologies are considered to be in the development stage and faced with numerous issues. The Information Technology industry is facing the need to address the unique challenges or issues associated with cloud computing technologies. As a result, there have been numerous improvements and trends in cloud computing technologies with a view of addressing these unique challenges. Moreover, there have been numerous speculations regarding the future of cloud computing technologies, which affect purchase recommendations for a client.
Trends in Cloud Computing Technologies
Since the emergence of cloud computing, these technologies have experienced various trends based on the efforts made to address their unique challenges. One of these recent trends is the increased focus on cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (Weins, 2017). This focus has been influenced by the emergence of several new themes in cloud computing, especially the focus among business enterprises to optimize costs of cloud computing. While cloud computing is generally cheaper as compared to other technologies, business enterprises have continued to look for measures to optimize costs. In this regard, businesses are increasingly looking ways to maximize the benefits and positive impacts of cloud computing at cheaper costs. The concept of infrastructure-as-a-service, which is also known as hardware-as-a-service emerged in 2006 to refer to the delivery of physical or virtual computer resources as a commodity to end users (Shawish & Salama, 2014).
The second trend is the increased preference for hybrid cloud rather than private cloud adoption, which has decreased significantly in the recent past. According to a recent State of the Cloud survey on cloud buyers and users, 85 percent of business enterprises utilize a hybrid cloud strategy (Weins, 2017). The increase has occurred at a time when private cloud adoption has decreased to 72 percent as shown in Figure 1. The increased preference for hybrid cloud strategy is attributable to the fact that cloud users are increasingly running application in several clouds. The survey showed that companies running clouds are already running applications and experimenting with others in public clouds. The preference for hybrid cloud strategy is also attributable to the tendency by business enterprises to run their workloads in public rather than private clouds. Richards (2017) attribute the preference of hybrid cloud strategy to the tendency by modern organizations to work with at least four cloud vendors.
The third recent trend in cloud computing technologies is Software as a Service (SaaS), which are cloud-based applications that function on distant computers owned by various parties and connect to the end users through the Internet (Joshi & Tikar, 2015). SaaS has emerged as a major trend in cloud computing because it provides several services to business enterprises including business process management, social business, web analytics, and business analytics.
Mobile cloud computing has also emerged as a crucial trend in cloud computing and involves combination of cloud computing and mobile networks to generate numerous benefits and functionality for mobile users. This trend has emerged to enable mobile users execute rich mobile applications on their devices as part of enhancing their user experience. The emergence of ultra-fast 4G mobile networks has played a major role in the proliferation of mobile cloud computing, which in turn enables organizations and business enterprise to innovate new ways for their operations.


References
Joshi, M.R. & Tikar, B.V. (2015, February). Cloud-Computing its Services and Recent Trends. International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile Computing, 4(2), 136-143.
Richards, D. (2017, February 6). The Future Isn’t Cloud. It’s Multi-cloud. Retrieved August 5, 2017, from http://www.networkworld.com/article/3165326/cloud-computing/the-future-isnt-cloud-its-multi-cloud.html
Shawish, A. & Salama, M. (2014). Cloud Computing: Paradigms and Technologies. Retrieved August 5, 2017, from  http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9783642350153-c2.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1429336-p175276227
Pooja & Pandey, A. (2014, April 17). Virtual Machine Performance Measurement. IEEE Explore. Retrieved August 5, 2017, from http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/6784146/6799496/06799630.pdf
Weins, K. (2017, February 15). Cloud Computing Trends: 2017 State of the Cloud Survey. Retrieved August 5, 2017, from http://www.rightscale.com/blog/cloud-industry-insights/cloud-computing-trends-2017-state-cloud-survey
Zhang, Q., Cheng, L. & Boutaba, R. (2010, April 20). Cloud Computing: State-of-the-art and Research Challenges. Journal of Internet Services and Applications, 1, 7-18.


Appendix
Figure 1: Adoption of Cloud Computing in 2017 v. 2016
Source: http://www.rightscale.com/blog/cloud-industry-insights/cloud-computing-trends-2017-state-cloud-survey