Cloud adoption has been on an upward trend for more than a decade now, but the last few years in particular have seen a major surge in growth. The COVID-19 pandemic led many businesses to accelerate their digital transformation plans, leading them away from outdated legacy systems toward new cloud service and development models. Offering greater scalability, faster implementation, and significantly reduced costs, cloud adoption has proven to be highly profitable.
While recent cloud developments have emerged in many different forms, the public cloud space has arguably seen the biggest shift in the last few years. Experts predict public cloud end-user spending will reach nearly $600 billion in 2023 and that the growth trend will not slow down anytime soon. There are a plethora of reasons why one should move to the public cloud and with a well-planned and executed migration strategy, companies can meet their goals while unlocking new business advantages.
The Benefits of Public Cloud Adoption
Arguably the greatest benefit that comes with moving to the public cloud is that it offers an on-demand, hyper-scale environment. This means businesses don’t have to pay upfront for hardware and storage capacity that may never end up being used. The public cloud grants businesses the ability to increase (or decrease) resources automatically and dynamically, allowing one to quickly adapt to changing business needs and market conditions.
The greater flexibility offered by public cloud solutions also allows for quicker deployment and simplified disaster recovery capabilities; it keeps data safe without requiring equipment across multiple data centers or paying for infrastructure costs. This isn’t the only option for reducing costs either: there is also room to reduce spending on storage, networking, software licenses, and many more. While how much you save heavily depends on having the right solutions and methodologies, the potential for cost optimization is undeniable.
The Evolution of the Public Cloud
Despite anticipating economic challenges for the new year, 59% of senior IT decision-makers from midmarket and enterprise companies claimed that they plan to increase spending on public cloud applications and infrastructure in 2023, with only around 4% saying they would decrease spending this year. Additionally, around 71% of senior IT decision-makers expect to develop and deploy cloud-native applications in the new year. That said, companies aren’t likely to stick with a single public cloud provider, with IT buyers increasingly favoring a multi-cloud approach.
Along with increased spending, cloud technologies are also steadily moving away from linear evolution, embracing new technologies and models. Cloud computing has already proven to be a catalyst for recent developments in AI, machine learning, and automation, a trend that’s only likely to continue in 2023. Cloud capabilities can deliver low latency and services on demand, all while meeting the tech’s processing and data storage requirements. Given the cost efficiency the cloud offers as well, it will prove vital as companies look to expand automation efforts in the face of the impending economic downturn. We’re likely to see this impact many industries, including banking, insurance, and retail.
The Potential Challenges of Cloud Adoption
Though cost savings is one of the key benefits of cloud adoption, one additional cost will be absolutely necessary for any looking to invest in the space: cybersecurity. Increased cyber attacks have become a major problem around the globe, not only because of the potential financial costs involved and the loss of goodwill that follows an attack but because of mounting regulatory pressure to protect user data. We’re already seeing emerging solutions aimed to tackle these issues, from the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) concept that creates a secure connection between apps and users, to Cloud Disaster Recovery (CDR) services that aim to back up vital business resources.
There is also the issue of increasing complexity and implementation challenges, as the cloud and the technologies that are developing around it are moving at such a rapid pace that it can be difficult to find the right vendor for you. There are also the potential difficulties that come with a hybrid cloud approach, such as managing multiple service providers or dealing with data transfer bottlenecks between private and public clouds can be a hindrance. However, companies can mitigate these issues by sticking with a single public cloud provider and carefully assessing their business needs to find the right vendor for the services they need.
Looking Ahead to the Future of Public Cloud
As cloud computing continues to mature and grow, we’re only going to see wider adoption across a range of different businesses and industries. When carefully considered and meaningfully implemented, cloud adoption gives companies the tools needed for long-term business success, bringing down costs while streamlining many complex processes. There will certainly be challenges in the year ahead, but those who find the right vendors and cloud solutions for their business will be able to get the most from their tech while minimizing any potential negatives.
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