In 2013, the cloud industry endures a maturing of sorts. Cloud, as a concept, moves from the lab to the default for many. In order to transit the maturing process, a number of changes will start to take place in 2013. The changes take place in both the industry and within the IT organization itself.
- Rise of the Cloud Verticals: Today, the cloud marketplace offers a smorgasbord of general-purpose solutions. In a fledgling industry, providers needed to focus on solutions that served a wide range of client requirements. Now with critical mass for some specific verticals, expect to see industry-specific cloud-based solutions. These solutions may include a suite of services or ecosystem geared to specific industries.
- Widespread Planning of IaaS Migrations: Now that cloud has moved beyond the lab, organizations will include IaaS solutions in their roadmap planning. SaaS will continue to take a role, however, the rise of hybrid cloud solutions will drive IaaS in IT roadmaps in earnest.
- CIO’s Look to Cloud to Catapult IT Transformation: The role of the CIO and IT organization is evolving as quickly as the underlying technology methodologies. The evolutionary shift in IT’s role in the business will (in turn) cause a re-evaluation of solutions used. Expect to see IT organizations leverage cloud as one of the most significant opportunities to fuel this early transformation.
- Mobile Increases Intensity of Cloud Adoption: As the prominence of mobile use increases, look for the adoption rates of cloud to increase respectively. Traditional IT methodologies provide a cumbersome solution for many mobile requirements. The move to cloud provides an elegant solution to a rather complex problem.
- Cloud Innovation Shifts from New Solutions to Integration & Consolidation: Cloud’s shine starts to fad as focus moves to reality. Organizations are less interested in the solving a singular point problem. Look for a move to solutions that solve multiple issues and integrate with other solutions. Expect consolidation of singular cloud solutions for opportunities to provide more robust solutions.
Cloud computing is truly the way of the future. We setup our entire business intelligence platform and data warehouse in the cloud – Efficient, fast and cost effective – Highly recommended solution but business involvement is pivotal.