Six Day-to-Day Truths About Cloud

Previously, companies were unsure about cloud. Now, adoption of the technology in business settings is rising steadily, thanks in large part to the success of the consumer cloud. Here are stats and interesting facts.

•  Trust in Cloud Rising Fast
• Growth of Cloud – Stats
• Six Day-to-Day Cloud Truths
• Cloud Really Can be a Breeze

Trust in Cloud Rising Fast

Mobile devices and touchscreen PCs are a big part of the past decade of computing, but an even more significant advance is the rise of cloud technology. However, that road hasn’t been easy. The majority of enterprises used to be unsure about using cloud because they wanted their own server, with their own security precautions. Plus, they worried about integration between on-premises and cloud systems.

Everything is different following the success of the consumer cloud. Basically think about whatever files you used to store on your own computer but now keep at a distance. Examples include YouTube for videos, iTunes for music, and Instagram for photos. Cloud is part of our daily lives.

Over time, organizations have realized that the millions of consumers using cloud were actually making a reasonable decision. They noticed how the virtualization of cloud servers allowed them to access available resources on any of thousands of physical machines – creating economies of scale that cut costs for everyone.

Businesses “also saw that not having to build and host a platform for their code speeded time to market for their software,” notes Kevin Kelleher in Time. “Most of all – and most counterintuitively – they saw that the cloud just might be safer than their own servers from hackers.”

Growth of Cloud – Stats

Business is believing more in cloud. How do we know that? It’s simply been growing rapidly and continues at a breakneck pace. The public cloud market, which was at $175 billion last year, will expand 17% to reach $204 billion, notes Gartner. The majority of that rise will be in cloud infrastructure (infrastructure-as-a-service, or IaaS) since so many people are looking for private Cloud hosting plans. IaaS is forecast by the analyst group to increase 38% this year. One prominent aspect of this growth is cloud advertising, which is the most widely used cloud service internationally. That segment will grow 14% this year to achieve a total market value of $90 billion.

The growth is fairly consistent throughout global markets, according to Gartner research head Sid Nag. “This strong growth continues to reflect a shift away from legacy IT services to cloud-based services,” he says, “due to increased trend of organizations pursuing a digital business strategy.”

Six Day-to-Day Cloud Truths

Many business experts say that the cloud has been a disruptive technology in most professional fields. However, many people have trouble grasping what this virtual concept means. It’s easier to see what cloud offers through a few quick truths about how cloud functions in our daily lives:

#1 – There’s a good chance you switched to cloud in the 90s.

Cloud is framed as this fantastic new invention, but you’ve likely had a job that paid you through ADP Payroll Services. Their automated payroll process was one of the first instances of a cloud service.

#2 – Most consumers are cloud users even though they’re unaware.

As indicated above, the consumer cloud is huge, even though people don’t know it’s operating behind the scenes on Uber, Facebook, and elsewhere. Another perfect example is how a picture is synced between devices via iCloud. Cloud is omnipresent in many people’s lives then, just not obvious.

#3 – Cloud frees startups from buildings.

Prior to cloud, you would have needed to put your staff in a building, explains Tableau VP Francois Ajenstat. “In the new cloud world, there is no such thing as building a building,” he says. “[Y]ou’re actually leveraging another building that was built somewhere else, and you’ll add offices as you grow.”

#4 – Big data is an input and output of cloud.

Cloud allows for big data projects, checking the patterns in massive amounts of information. Because cloud moves so fast and can process information so efficiently, it also has produced a mind-boggling amount of information – all of which can be used to improve services and run businesses more smoothly.

#5 – Cloud shows us how culture can improve.

There is a way in which cloud democratizes data analysis, simply because it makes information so easily accessible. How does cloud have the potential to change our culture? One company, Xactly, has been using cloud to find unfairness in wage data between men and women. Another element of access is information on potential threats to your safety. The National Resources Defense Council created a tool showing the fallout area around nuclear power plants.

#6 – You can do some cloud analysis right now.

Anyone can jump in and look at public health datasets or NASA climate information (the latter after a massive cloud migration by the space agency in 2014). In that sense, cloud analysis isn’t nearly as obtuse as you might think.

Cloud Really Can be a Breeze

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