When we think of cloud computing, we think of conditions, products and ideas that started in the 21st century. However, this assumption is not exactly true.
The concept of delivering computing resources through a global network dates back to the 1950’s, where it gradually evolved from mainframe computing - multiple users had the capability to access a centralised computer through a ‘dumb’ terminal, whose main (and only) function was to provide access to this mainframe. With the costs involved in acquiring such a machine, it was not feasible for an organisation to buy and maintain one for every employee, nor did the typical user require such processing power and storage. Essentially, this is where the idea of time sharing computer resources originated.
For many, the year 2015 is being considered as the year that marked the point when cloud computing matured and became the go-to platform for a large proportion of enterprise applications and data. Things like flexibility, scalability and lower capital expenditure are all enticing when compared to traditional in-house data centres. Cloud computing has become a scalable service consumption and delivery platform with its technical foundations built on service-oriented architecture (SOA), and virtualisation of hardware and software. The main goal of cloud computing is resource sharing at various levels which results in several cloud offerings such as infrastructure cloud, software cloud, application cloud and business cloud.
In line with the evolution trends over the past few years, we will also see improvements of the current-generation cloud environments and offerings, as well as completely new technologies for application developers to take advantage of in 2016. New and improved migration tools will aid in the convergence of legacy applications, while the development of new applications will be optimised to operate within a cloud environment. In both scenarios, security has to be a consistent and important theme in order for the enterprise to adopt these new technologies and make the leap from their current in-house setup to a cloud environment.
At the beginning of 2016, RightScale, an American company providing support for cloud environments, conducted a survey where it questioned technical professionals across a broad cross-section of organisations about their adoption of cloud infrastructure. The 1,060 respondents ranged from technical executives to managers and practitioners, representing organisations of varying sizes across many industries. Their answers provide a comprehensive perspective on the state of the cloud today. 95% of those respondents said that they make use of cloud services, with 18% using a public cloud, 6% using a private cloud and 71% are utilising a hybrid cloud.
A private cloud, also known as an internal or enterprise cloud, resides in a company’s intranet or is hosted at a data centre where all of ones data is protected behind a firewall. The main difference between public and private clouds is that the client is not responsible for any of the management of a public cloud hosting solution. The data in the public cloud is stored in the provider’s infrastructure and the provider is responsible for the management and maintenance of this data centre. Another option is that of the hybrid architecture. This cloud service is especially attractive for large organisations that want to explore the flexibility and scalability of the public cloud by branching their internal cloud to a public cloud provider. That said, it would be imperative to keep in mind the significant challenges for consistency, security, and orchestration across multiple complex systems when opting for a hybrid setup.
So what does the future hold for cloud? Bright and clear skies ahead… when you consider that companies like IBM, Google and Microsoft are pouring millions of dollars in research on quantum, with the hope of creating the next big thing in the computing industry. While traditional digital computers use bits, ones and zeros to perform calculations, quantum computers use subatomic quantum bits, or qubits, with the difference that they can be in multiple states at once. The potential of those qubits is that they can carry out more calculations in parallel and could offer new ways of solving problems that traditional digital computers currently find very hard to do.
It is believed that cloud-based quantum computing could help solve big and important science problems and which, according to the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, could be achievable within the coming 6-10 years.
