The IT industry is in a state of dynamic transition due to the increased popularity of cloud computing.
It is impossible to envision a world that would work so seamlessly without technology like cloud computing. Nevertheless, I honestly believe that people can make predictions – or calculated guesses – if they meticulously analyze events of the past.
So, here I am, before you, trying to foretell how the world would be, 10 years from now, with the cloud technology in our hand.
A lot of people were very sceptic when the cloud was rolled out, a lot of which, I now see, have turned into the cloud’s biggest fanboys. Today, cloud computing is viewed as one of the safest technologies to exist but it has had its share of hardships.
Given the way these virtual technologies are shaping our world, it wouldn’t surprise me if the future becomes far from recognizable.
So, here are a few trends that we should embrace ourselves to expect:
1. Embark on new things on a much larger scale
One of mankind’s first employee monitoring software computers looked like a monster truck, cost more than Toyota and did nothing more than a calculator can do today.
My point is, the world is changing, regardless of whether you perceive it or not. Think of the scale in which the technology is deployed. We are producing so much data each day that we’d soon run out of free space to create a data center.
The cloud will continue on a similar trend. It has grown the last decade and will continue to do so in the years to come. Every application being developed today is elastic so as to be able to respond to the changing demands. You can assume that in the days to come the potential capacity of cloud services will become infinite, although apparently.
The design efforts will involve a holistic approach which could lead you into assuming that all the applications are scalable, which, although true, isn’t exactly right either.
2. Immersion of IoT
The whole idea of IoT began after cloud computing service providersbecame ubiquitous (omnipresent). The pioneers of IoT, seeing this as an opportunity, decided to leverage the reach of cloud to their advantage and there began the process of immersing cloud with every device possible.
Many believe we are entering the post-PC world. Although computers will continue to remain vital in our lives, we would no longer interact with them the way we do now.
In the days to come, computers will become smart enough and while being immersed with the IoT, collect data on their own. The systems would be advanced enough to interpret what they have collected and later reuse the same for our advantage.
In fact, we are going to be surrounded by far advanced special-purpose device that would execute multiple functions and communicate with one another through a centralized cloud.
For example, the heart rate monitor on our watch would send data in real-time to the health monitoring system. The system would raise an alarm when the beats per minute exceed normal heart rate and notify health care professional if required.
We wouldn’t know what kind of devices are around us unless we carefully observe them.
It is not easy to know how this thing will play out in real-time. Even the people in the industry are sceptic if this would really work out. I mean, we aren’t sure if people would be willing to buy devices that record each movement and share the information with other devices on the network.
The pace at which we are advancing, we’d soon see smarter smartphones, computers, refrigerators and even baskets. Yes, baskets. In the days to come, your basket would maintain your grocery list and notify the store to drop items you are running short on.
We aren’t really far from the era where non-human interactions would outnumber actual human interactions.
3. IT Restructuring IT
The cost of computers has constantly declined. I bought my first PC at somewhere around $700.
You can now buy a decent laptop for that price.
The market is teeming with competition and manufacturers aiming to occupy the market have decreased the prices to the least possible. Operating systems, applications and other things have become a lot simpler and affordable. If the cost becomes too much of an issue, they would eventually be replaced by open-source components.
Paradoxically, while the end cost will reduce, the total spend on IT will increase a lot. The increased total expenditure would be due to the decrease in component cost, thus more and more people will be able to afford IT devices.
4. PaaS is where it’s at
With the growing cloud demand, PaaS will be the next big thing. Application developers waste too much time trying to build the platform to implement scalability and elasticity into their applications.
It thus makes more sense to have that platform created by someone else and undertake all the other things yourself, which is the idea behind PaaS.
5. Shortage of developers
What happens when the demand for particular commodity surges?
The amount of stress on individual producers increase or the commodity runs short. Similar would be the case with cloud computing. The amount of focus we have laid on these things will surge the demands and we would ultimately run short on developers. This will ultimately help you to succeed in the long run without overstating any part of your budget at any point.