According to Business Insider, the price war on cloud computing rages on. Described as “the race to zero” by some tech experts, the competition seems fierce in the coming year and the market continues to be a vicious battle ground for cloud service providers. Mark Mahaney of RBC Capital published a chart to show the changes between Oct 2013 to December 2014, and this trend shows no sign of stopping.
For small businesses looking to take the leap, this could be the ultimate year to invest in a new cloud based network. With so many vendors slashing their prices in the competitive market, affordable solutions for robust, flexible and scalable IT have never been so accessible. According to experts, 2015 is time to move over to the cloud, and cutting edge vendors such as Logicalis are able to offer fully integrated services and a wide portfolio of cloud solutions to fit in with small business models.
So what other trends can small businesses look out for in the coming year? Here are a few more opinions from cloud computing experts.
New Tools to Support Application Migration
Cloud computing thought leader, David S. Linthicum believes that 2015 will be the year of tighter application migration, a huge positive for IT managers overseeing the move. Moving apps to the cloud can be a complicated process, which can incur costs and resources. But 2015 could see some vast improvements to make migrating a much simpler process.
Increase in Software as a Service (SaaS)
Virtualization will continue to grow but there will be a significant shift towards Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) according to CIMI Corporation president and founder, Tom Nolle. This could potentially create a divergence in the current market, leading to some vendors offering Low-cost Infrastructure as a Service (LaaS).
A Growth in Cloud Brokerage
Trend reports on IT Business Edge reveal that cloud brokerage could grow as more and more businesses adopt the cloud. Growth in cloud consumption opens a market for cloud migration management assistance, thus the potential growth of brokerage over the next few years. A cloud broker can act as the intermediary between customer and provider and there can be great benefits for both in terms of relationship management.
Hybrid Cloud Computing Will Become Critical
Hybrid computing is the combined performance of external cloud computing services with internal infrastructure, and could become this year’s strategy of choice according to Tech Radar Pro. The hybrid strategy has already become a popular approach with companies looking to meet a whole range of IT needs. This could lead to a growth in hybrid cloud management platforms as the traditional ‘one cloud’ solution no longer ticks all the boxes for SMEs.
Cloud Hacks Will Be a Problem
An article on Information Management predicts that cloud hacking will become an unavoidable problem. However the issue will lie with the customer in many cases; poor compliance practices or inadequate training can lead to slackened security. To avoid this, it’s important for businesses adopting Software as a Service to undergo the right training and adhere to compliance guidelines stipulated by the vendor.
