Future of cloud computing.

If your small business doesn't run its computing systems in the cloud now, chances are it will soon.

While cloud adoption is growing rapidly, businesses have a long list of challenges that prevent them from moving to the cloud, including the cost of implementation, privacy risks, and a lack of standards between cloud providers.

Still, the approach of the industry towards emerging technology of cloud computing is somewhat baffling. Cloud computing, a paradigm shift after the client-server model break-through of the eighties, is starting to show up in every other business. Curious, retailing industry is clearly lagging behind. It happens when the practical applications of the technology can do wonders to the industry. The word 'cloud' in cloud computing is actually a metaphor used for internet. Using internet would have robbed the concept of its novelty.

Although everyone is familiar with information sharing through internet and worldwide web, performing all the operations of computing through the internet is not so familiar. Cloud computing exactly does the same. It shares information, software - applications and operating system - and infrastructure - hardware like servers and storage units - using internet. A revolutionary cloud computing model can avail high power computing to the customers who need to have only typical input/output infrastructure.

With most new software being built for cloud from the outset, it is predicted that by 2016 over a quarter of all applications (around 48 million) will be available on the cloud. This makes sense when you consider that about 56 percent of enterprises consider cloud to be a strategic differentiator, and approximately 58 percent of enterprises spend more than 10 percent of their annual budgets on cloud services. 

Consumers are start to understand the differences between public, private, and hybrid cloud deployments. Companies can expect to see greater segmentation and better education about which type of cloud works best for them. More industry leaders will be working to establish boundaries when it comes to business-critical workloads and security measures.

Companies choosing to stay with shared clouds have the risk of slower performance and increased security threats. As a result, industry leaders can expect to see a migration to private clouds in the future.

Some industry leaders say that 50 percent of companies will have hybrid clouds as early as 2017. CIOs will be pushing for more strategies implementing the cloud although they won’t always be pure cloud implementations since it can be very difficult to do so. The hybrid cloud provides a combination of strengths like management convenience and on-premise solutions. CIOs can expect to see more resources going towards cloud development since 85 percent of new software is being built with the cloud in mind. Enterprises can expect to see an increase in third-party, enterprise and commercial developers and contributors to  cloud application ecosystems, marketplaces, and API exchanges.

It’s expected by 2020 that CIO will not be able to draw a map of their infrastructure if asked due to the evolving characteristics of the cloud. Software can be expected to almost completely float away from hardware since companies are already starting to find many valuable applications available online while eliminating the need to keep purchasing new servers. Companies can also expect individual software applications to get larger and more complex for scalability. Since applications will only get larger, the emphasis will be on modular software. Modular software are large applications with components that can be modified without shutting down the entire program. This will require a new approach to technology by CIOs and their department.

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