Owning and maintaining physical servers or data centers is very expensive, and, most of the time, it’s a waste of valuable resources. Instead, a much more efficient approach is to employ cloud technology. Simply put, businesses can get various resources via the internet (data storage, processing power, development tools, etc.) on-demand. Companies can also scale their IT infrastructure and resources anytime, according to the need.

Even if it’s not a new technology and was popular among various companies before, the demand for cloud computing solutions has risen significantly during the pandemic. According to Statista, the worldwide public cloud computing market is constantly growing and is expected to reach an estimated 482 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.

What are the top trends of cloud computing this year?

Jonas Minelga, Cloud Chapter Lead for Risk Tribe at Danske Bank, agreed to share his knowledge about this topic. Let’s take a look at the top 5 cloud computing trends in 2022.

1. Hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud infrastructure

Let’s start by explaining the most important terms.

Clouds are managed by companies that offer cloud services. These organizations are also called cloud providers. The leading public cloud providers are AWS (Amazon), Microsoft Azure, and Google cloud.

If more than one client shares a cloud, it’s called a public cloud. The multi-cloud definition stands for different public clouds used to support one or more applications. Hybrid-cloud infrastructure combines an internal data center with a public cloud. Data and applications are shared between them. Simply put, companies use more than one public cloud in addition to the in-house data centers.

Before, businesses mostly ran their systems on a public cloud or had their own internal servers (or cloud). Now, there is a move towards a solution where both internal and public clouds are used.

Why are hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud infrastructures becoming more popular?

The answer is simple. With these solutions, companies can reduce their costs, increase their system capacity when needed, etc. Hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud infrastructures enable organizations to maintain control over data and provide enhanced scalability of operations.

“ Imagine if you need to fix a bug in a single line of code – you have to deploy the entire platform, and it’s inefficient. With serverless functions, developers can fix bugs or develop new functionalities without deploying the whole application or website.”

2. Serverless functions

Single-purpose, programmatic functions that are hosted and maintained on cloud computing infrastructures are called serverless functions.

Serverless functions rise in popularity among various companies because of better code maintenance. It’s not a secret that large organizations and enterprises have massive codebases. Imagine if you need to fix a bug in a single line of code – you have to deploy the entire platform, and it’s inefficient. With serverless functions, developers can fix bugs or develop new functionalities without deploying the whole application or website. Not only that, deployment of minor code updates to single services results in little or no downtime.

The most popular serverless computing platforms and their public cloud providers are AWS Lambda (Amazon), Azure Functions (Microsoft), Google Cloud Functions.

“ Clouds with implemented AI & ML technologies will “learn” and even “decide” how many resources the system needs.”

3. AI/ML in cloud computing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are taking over the tech world. It’s not a surprise that AI & ML technologies are also being used in cloud computing.

One of the ways how AI & ML technologies will help in cloud computing is managing the data and gaining insights. Clouds with implemented AI & ML technologies will “learn” and even “decide” how many resources the system needs. Of course, developing and maintaining so-called “self-managed clouds” requires AI & ML specialists. The demand for AI & ML developers in cloud computing will rise in 2022.

“ It’s also worth mentioning that it’s a perfect time for Virtual Reality (VR) glasses and other equipment to become more popular.”

4. Cloud gaming

Cloud gaming can be called the future of the gaming industry. Simply put, you don’t need to have a powerful computer or install anything – you can play a video game using remote servers. It’s rendered on the remote server, but you can interact with the game on your device. Yet, the leading companies working on cloud gaming are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, Sony, and Nvidia.

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s a perfect time for Virtual Reality (VR) glasses and other equipment to become more popular. With cloud computing, everything can be streamed directly to VR devices without the need for powerful computers. And also, if we evaluate the popularity of Metaverse and Blockchain games, it should be one of the most important fields where millions will be invested, and the number of users will grow exponentially.

“ Edge computing focuses on the fact that although in the cloud, everything should be as close as possible to the user (e.g., servers are selected according to the user’s location).“

5. Edge computing

In the world of cloud computing, edge computing is one of the most relevant topics. Most companies are already aware that cloud computing is the future, so they move their data to clouds. However, it can still pose some problems.

Edge computing focuses on the fact that although in the cloud, everything should be as close as possible to the user (e.g., servers are selected according to the user’s location). Simply put, this way, the data “travels a shorter distance,” which speeds up processes. This is especially important for time-sensitive data, as it becomes obsolete after a short period of time.

One of the edge computing examples can be autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles constantly collect the data produced by sensors and cameras. Then, the rugged edge computers can analyze this information and make crucial decisions in milliseconds. If the data had to travel thousands of kilometers to the data center for analysis and decision-making, it would be inefficient and insecure.

Conclusion

Cloud computing has become one of the most significant technological achievements in the past years. With the growing importance of cloud services, there is no doubt that it’s the future. It’s really interesting to follow the latest news and see how cloud computing is evolving, and, of course, it’s even more exciting to think about what it will offer in the near future.