The response of most businesses during the pandemic involved the cloud, and consumer demand significantly increased for AWS, Azure, Google Cloud – as did revenue for each of them. These numbers are expected to rise through all of 2021 as cloud trends continue to evolve.
The cloud has become the darling of the recovery according to “ForresterNow Predictions 2021: Cloud Computing” released in late 2020.
Revenue Growth and Cloud Trends
The public cloud infrastructure allowed business to rise to the challenge of the lockdowns and closures. Companiesturned things around quickly, adapting to innovative business models, and creating and deploying new apps rapidly to keep the millions of workers around the globe connected.
The impact of the virus was a “shotgun” which forced businesses to prioritize speed and customer experience above cost savings and efficiency – pushing many directly to the cloud. By the last quarter of 2020, the four largest public clouds reported strong revenue growth.
The Forrester report predicted that the worldwide public cloud infrastructure will grow 35% by the end of 2021 – representing $120 billion in revenue – and that AWS and Azure will hold the top market share spots.
Disaster Recovery Planning Shifts
But innovation often provides a kill-shot for traditional solutions. We expect to see on-premises DR (disaster recovery) and business continuity sites falling out of favor, with preference given to the cloud. Businesses that were unprepared for recovery were easy to spot in 2020, because the pandemic and the havoc it wreaked proved the necessity to improve resiliency across the board.
The report indicates that many companies finally gave up on-premise backups and moved business continuity/disaster recovery to the cloud – something experts have been trying to get them to do for years. In addition, any company who were resistant to implementing changing technologies at long last adopted the cloud – and seem willing to continue to do so now that they have made the move.
Cloud-Native Tech on the Rise
Containers, Kubernetes, and serverless cloud-native technologies will assist companies transfer from the data center to the cloud as thet can build, migrate and modernize customer-facing apps at scale. Before the pandemic:
- 19% of developers used serverless functions
- 22% used containers to build and develop application software on the cloud.
By the end of 2021, regular container use will be 28% and 25% of developers will regularly use serverless.
Marketplace Adoption Affecting Cloud Trends
Marketplaces are all the rage, but the report indicates that even though everyone has one, usage is not as heavy as you may think. This is not a time for large-scale purchases, or strategic options, since in SaaS marketplaces, the majority of business consists of smaller purchases, typically ranging from $10 to $300.
Among developer marketplaces, free-service Docker Hub has the greatest number of active users and participation through thousands of container images.
Before March of 2020, only 1% of buyers utilized marketplaces as a purchasing channel. In mid 2020 survey, 28% of worldwide buyers we looking for marketplace revenue to increase. At that time, Forrester predicted triple growth numbers in 2021. Marketplaces hoping to continue growth and find success will need to find ways to standardize vetting, contracts and billing terms to simplify multi-vendor management.
The cloud continues to evolve and forge its place in the most innovative and forward-thinking organizations. For more information on how cloud services can propel your business to the nxext level in 2021 and 2022, call Alliance IT for a consultation.
