In a world where artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are becoming more prevalent, cloud technology is cementing its place as a must-have system for any shrewd business operation. For many, this technology is redefining the marketplace and the way we do business, allowing users to store, access and share data wherever and whenever they want.

What is cloud computing? It’s defined as the on-demand availability of computer system resources, such as data storage and computing power - without the user’s direct active management. The term cloud computing is typically used to describe data centres which are available to users over the internet. Clouds can be limited to a single organization (enterprise clouds), available to multiple organizations (public clouds), or a combination of both (hybrid clouds).

Growth in cloud computing has been driven by the availability of low-cost computers and storage devices, along with high-capacity networks, in addition to the widespread adoption of service-oriented architecture and autonomic and utility computing.

According to the latest Gartner report, the global public cloud tech services market is projected to grow 17.3% to $206 billion in 2019, up from $175.8 billion in 2018. They also forecast that by 2022, up to 90% of organisations will be using cloud services.

With cloud computing taking the world by storm, we take a look at the must-watch cloud computing trends in 2019.

Service Mesh

With the growth of the cloud has come the increase of applications as microservices. And, as data container usage becomes more common for cloud-based application development, service meshes have proven their value.
Simply put, a service mesh is a dedicated system that helps different microservice applications communicate with each other. It allows you to monitor and authenticate these communications in a seamless manner, improving load balancing, observability, routing, and overall network functionality.

An example of this is Istio, a collaboration between Google, IBM and Lyft. This open source service is available to developers and intends to tackle the compliance and security challenges that come with integrating multiple microservice various systems. You can expect service meshes to be more readily available as providers jump on this trend.
Suggested quote placement from Modis expert, giving their take on the trend.

Serverless Technology

At the AWS re:Invent conference in 2018, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels referred to serverless computing as the "next generation of how we're going to build systems."
Back when cloud computing first gained popularity, all data was stored in servers, so the entire ecosystem was built to accommodate this. However, with most companies now storing their data online, server integration may soon be unnecessary.

Serverless technology allows developers to build and run app systems without any infrastructure, saving on time, effort and cost - and it’s being embraced wholeheartedly. The most recent Cloud Foundry Foundation global cloud trends survey found that: “Serverless is demonstrating even more rapid adoption. In just the past six months, [serverless] awareness has swelled to the point that it is now in its next phase of adoption, with a plurality evaluating the technology.”

Ross Winser, senior research director at Gartner, agrees, predicting that “more than 20 percent of global organisations will have deployed serverless computing technologies by 2020, which is an increase from less than five percent today."

Edge Computing

Also called the “new cloud”, edge computing streamlines cloud computing by executing the data processing state at the “edge” of the network rather than a centralised data processing warehouse. As the usage of IoT (Internet of Things) devices has increased, edge computing has proven crucial to streamlining the flow of information and providing real-time analytics.
Because of this ability to transmit data swiftly and efficiently, we expect to see increased usage of edge computing (and especially mobile edge computing) in the coming years. In fact, Juniper Research has found that the “total annual spend on Mobile Edge Computing will reach $11.2 billion by 2024. This is up from an estimated $1.3 billion in 2019, with an average annual growth of 52.9%.”

In particular, keep an eye out for developments from companies like Siemens, AWA, Bosch and Telit, as well as businesses from China. Juniper’s 2019-24 forecasts have calculated that China and the Far East will account for 41% of the global annual spend on edge processing, with companies like Huawei, Intel and Alibaba already collaborating to further their development capabilities.


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