The Future of Cloud Computing - The Rate of Change Keeps Rising

When I started my three-part series on cloud computing, my plan was clear. Start with the basics in Part I by intentionally stripping The Cloud down to its most basic elements, separating meaningful vernacular from chatter heard around the proverbial water cooler. With a shared starting point, in Part II I focused on the types of cloud deployment models and the varied data and service models available in a cloud computing environment.  The final piece, Part III, offers insights into the “why and how” to think about the myriad possible ways to combine specific deployment models with desired services to craft a cloud computing strategy tailored to the unique needs of each cloud computing customer.

This piece is offered as a preface to Part III, as some additional topics deserve attention to establish context in an important temporal dimension, business leaders tend to leave unaddressed to the detriment of their businesses - the impact of an exponential acceleration in the rate of change on strategic planning and how to think about such planning.

As company leaders rely more and more on public and hybrid cloud services, data privacy in the cloud is imperative. The primary goal of confidential computing is to provide greater assurance to leaders that their data in the cloud is protected and confidential, and to encourage them to move more of their sensitive data and computing workloads to public cloud services. - Source:  https://www.ibm.com/topics/confidential-computing

As the quote above from IBM suggests, the complex matrix of potential cloud-computing strategies (how a company chooses to assemble and connect our Legos) informed by business priorities, such as privacy and security, are changing in near real-time.  The rapid pace of change is mitigating the need for concern over key issues around migration to the cloud, most prominent of which is security.  We have the rate and type of change to thank for that.  Any piece of advice regarding strategic planning and decision making in this era of digital transformation should be predicated on a business growth philosophy that places hyper-adaptability, creativity, and experimentation at its core. 

Forecasting Market Value For Computing Technology

The curated content from IBM and emerging technology statistics included in this piece shine a light on the need to change our thinking when discussing emerging technologies. Emerging technologies such as edge computing and blockchain are potentially disruptive to the rapidly growing cloud computing market. Or, stated more bluntly, digital technology time is on a vastly different scale and requires serious attention by strategists that understand future direction and the impact of an accelerating rate of change.

Cloud Computing Market Value Forecast

Edge Computing Market Value Forecast

Blockchain Market Value Forecast

What to Expect in Cloud Series Part III

As Part III in this series will illuminate, assuming digital transformation is the mission at hand, I submit the answer to the question, “which cloud-computing deployment model works best for my organization?” gives rise to the same basic answer, and other issues float to the top of the priority list of objectives.

How is that possible? Given the array of options and the myriad combinations awaiting assembly into any number of solutions (Legos at work) how did the vast array of choices suddenly disappear? The answer is simple. Change is continuous and the acceleration of the rate of technological change is exponential. In such an environment, it is the public cloud-computing service providers most able to move quickly and at sufficient scale to keep pace with such change. 

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