Cloud computing technology has quickly become the go-to solution for companies of all sizes around the world. By the end of this year alone, American businesses will have spent approximately $13 billion on cloud-based technologies.
But how does cloud computing’s future look? According to recent studies, we can expect the cloud’s growth to continue on the upward trajectory it’s been on for the last few years.
According to a Cloud Tech article, a recent Cisco study found that some 78% of all workloads will be based in and processed by cloud data centers by 2018 — with global annual cloud network traffic reaching an astonishing 6.5 zettabytes (for comparison, one zettabyte is equivalent to one trillion gigabytes).
Of these cloud-based workloads, approximately 69% will be located on private cloud space, with the remaining 31% on public cloud servers, the Cisco study found.
Meanwhile, adoption of the public cloud has been projected to grow about six times faster than the overall IT sector by 2018, the International Business Times reports, with two billion individuals storing their personal data in the cloud in the next four years.
For the most part, cloud-based services are growing so quickly because of the “cloud first” strategy employed by both IT service vendors and the companies that buy IT services. Public cloud providers like Google, Amazon and Microsoft continue to drop prices for their cloud services, encouraging more businesses to take advantage of cloud computing and its benefits.
The benefits of cloud computing are numerous for the businesses and companies that buy these services. The cloud offers a broad range of options and tech solutions that can be tailored to an organization’s unique needs. It also holds few upfront costs and it provides a high level of defense against the costs associated with planned obsolescence.
Many companies and corporate entities have also switched to the cloud because of the increased mobility it offers to workers — cloud-based workspaces can be accessed from any location, at any time.
Because of all these benefits, it’s clear to see why cloud computing will continue to grow at a healthy rate from now until 2018.