The Forecast for Cloud Computing

After more than a decade of refining the Internet as a marketplace, the business world is grappling with the uneasy reality that companies can run almost every information system they rely on without owning any tech equipment. Thanks to the phenomenon known as cloud computing, businesses can rent access to applications and IT infrastructure that reside on the Internet, pay for them on a subscription or per-use basis and provide employees with access to information from anywhere at any time with nothing more than a connected device.

In theory, it sounds great. No more wrangling with software updates or growing storage requirements. And the days of having to expand data centers to make room for additional racks of servers to support a growing business? Gone.

Of course, the promise of cloud computing goes far beyond providing solutions to such headaches. It may, in fact, hold promise for transforming the role of IT within the business. The potential to one day subscribe to systems as a service could mean an end to wrangling with infrastructure decisions by letting a service provider sweat issues like server capacity, storage and bandwidth. Cloud computing also may prove to be an ideal strategy for reaping the full benefit of mobile devices by allowing companies to essentially push their IT Environment out to employees, rather than employees having to get access to the IT environment.

But theory isn’t reality, and just because cloud computing holds promise doesn’t mean that’s going to translate into practical solutions for real business technology challenges—at least, not anytime soon. Cloud computing serves as a reminder that computing models constantly change. As businesses face increasing pressures to be as agile as possible, they’ll be forced to adapt to evolving computing models to remain competitive.

The full article can be found at https://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Trends/The-Forecast-for-Cloud-Computing/