It has taken many years for cloud computing technologies to mature and become mainstream in global businesses. Now the skeptics have stopped questioning the long-range sustainability of the cloud ecosystem, but it remains to be seen how allied technologies like edge, serverless, IoT, AI, and big data can together fulfill enterprise business needs. Many cloud technology experts seem to think that some emerging technologies have the capability of taking cloud to the next phase of business innovation.

In the next 10 years, businesses operators may experience unique levels of business performance due to cloud technologies, where “experience data” will combine with “operational data” to aid that unique business performance. According a Forrester Research Report, Predictions 2020: Cloud Computing:

“The public cloud market, which comprises cloud apps (SaaS), cloud development platforms (PaaS), and cloud infrastructure (IaaS) platforms, will reach $411 billion by 2022.”

This report also indicates that very soon, IBM and Oracle will stop outperforming opponents in the global “public cloud battleground,” recently taken over by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. Currently, AWS, Microsoft, and Google jointly own 55 percent of the overall cloud market.

Cloud Computing and Cloud Architecture Trends in 2020 states that the results of a recent North Bridge venture firm survey indicate that 50 percent of surveyed organizations are using a “cloud-first” philosophy; and in some cases, using it “exclusively” for marketing needs.

Consolidation of Cloud with Emerging Technologies

In recent times, the cloud vendors have shown a distinct move toward technology consolidation around infrastructure platforms, databases, and even apps. Along with this trend, another marked trend shown by cloud service providers is the integration of “several emerging technologies” like HPC workloads as industry standards.

Due to recent advances in container technology, now cloud service providers, in order to compete with on-premise data centers, are likely to position a “hybrid-cloud,” with superior container management technology. This proposition, initiated in 2019, can continue to be game-changing deal for cloud vendors and service providers.

Another example of platform consolidation is the “multi-cloud,” where the end-to-end cloud environment may contain at least two public clouds and one private cloud. According to a VXChange article:

“By 2020, the architecture of public clouds will adjust to meet the growing demands of their clients, and many private clouds will be transformed into hybrid clouds, allowing them to link and interact with public clouds.”

The management of multi-cloud environments may be vested either with the business operator or with an external service provider. The biggest advantage of a multi-cloud environment is freedom from dependence on one (costly and technologically restrictive) cloud vendor.

The Emerging Technologies for the Cloud in 2020

“Standardization and increased compatibility” are two signs of the maturing technology that now surrounds the cloud computing world. Like any maturing technology, it comes with a host of allied technologies designed to work with the primary technology platform. A few such emerging technologies, designed to work with the cloud are:

• HPC workloads allow workloads to be more portable and data streams more mobile. This elasticity of the public cloud accounts for a serious market proposition
• Google’s Anthos service, capable of running as smoothly on AWS or Azure as on Google Cloud Platform
• Now, cloud believers have an option of working in a cloud environment with wide-scale technology features, while preserving the security and privacy of an on-premise, private cloud.
• Cloud Computing Challenges Navigating the Multi-Cloud Landscape explains how multi-cloud combines additional technology benefits of the public cloud with the security aspects of a private cloud.
• Edge computing allows real-time analytics to occur very close to the source of the in-stream IoT data. Google took the bold step of unveiling Edge TPU to accelerate enterprise adoption of “AI at the edge.”
• Serverless PaaS, which enables high-performance business data processing without the need for expensive servers. As the cloud service provider manages all computing resources, it becomes easy for business owners to “build out their cloud-based systems.” The biggest benefit of serverless: the cloud host executes “snippets of code” without involving developers.
• Data containers enable easy transference of applications and workloads between two different cloud setups. The battle of container platforms peaked with assimilation of Kubernetes management at scale. But if the general assumption is that container management and container technology use are two distinct business practices, then adoption of cloud services could increase with Amazon’s EKS, Microsoft Azure AKS, or Google GKE.
  

Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing gives an overview of emerging technologies for the cloud. The growth AI, edge analytics, AI platform as a service (PaaS), and graph analytics a;; signal the arrival of a multi-cloud environment spanning different cloud infrastructures for sharing workloads, applications, and technology resources.

What Major Trade Publications Think of Emerging Cloud Technologies

According to Top Six Emerging Technologies in Cloud Computing, although technologies such as “serverless” were specifically created for the cloud, these technologies are gradually transforming the world of enterprise computing. A big advantage of serverless is that all computing management headaches are handled by the service provider. Take another cloud technology — the containers.

A post describes a collection of emerging technologies for the cloud, one of which is GuardDuty — an AI-enabled offering by AWS for analyzing cyber security data. Another AI technology about to storm the cloud environment is voice-activated decision support system (DSS) driving sales and marketing functions.

Recently, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU has spurred security-technology development for cloud data breaches. As non-compliance results in heavy penalty for businesses, cloud security professionals are making sure that superior encryption and password-protection technologies are implemented for higher governance on an enterprise level. In the coming days, cloud IaaS services will have loads of technology features, available at a low cost.

The service mesh, an interconnected, communications technology to enable containerized micro-services across environments, is starting to gain in popularity. This mesh environment is designed to “span the cloud, corporate data centers, and edge environments.” In the managed containers scenario, cloud service providers may soon think of offering hosted versions of major, on-premise container platforms such as Red Hat OpenShift.

A Sitepronews news release provides a detailed discussion about the current status of the cloud service industry. According to this news release, all cloud-based services like infrastructure as service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS), and platform as a service (PaaS) are all likely to gain steam in the coming years as they afford customers with business services at scale with some degree of control.

Another undeniable benefit of cloud as a service plans is the affordable price tag, which tempts hitherto uninitiated businesses to explore data-driven, business management. According to Allied Market Research, “the cloud services market will reach $555 billion by 2020 from $209.9 billion in 2014 — growing at a CAGR of 17.6 percent between 2014 and 2020.”

Edge Computing and the Growth of Hyperconverged Solutions Over the Cloud talks about a technology-enabled, complex hybrid cloud environment with both “micro-data centers at the edge and on-premise data centers.” This article indicates that edge computing market is “expected to experience a compound annual growth rate of 35 percent, reaching $33.75 billion by 2023.”

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