Top 5 Cloud Computing Trends for 2022

Cloud adoption has been on an upward trajectory for over a decade now. In 2020 and 2021, cloud computing technology usage soared due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that the epidemiological situation seems to have gone back to normal, the interest in the cloud didn’t decrease. Moreover, public cloud services are expected to grow by over 22% ($482 billion US dollars) in 2022, according to a Statista report. 

As the cloud has become an integral part of the organizing life and work processes, it’s better to keep up with its latest updates not to miss anything important, and be ahead of competitors. In this article, we described 5 cloud trends for 2022.

Trend 1: Cloud delivery models shape the tech landscape

Hybrid cloud

The keynote of the year 2022 and beyond are customizable, flexible solutions that facilitate businesses’ agility and provide a competitive advantage to stay at the top of the market.

Back in the day, organizations had to choose between private and public solutions: the public cloud offered more accessible, pay-as-you-go services, while the private cloud systems provided companies with more control over the security of their sensitive data (due to location). 

Hybrid cloud implementation gave companies the chance to get the best of both worlds: private and public solutions. According to Equinix, 93% of companies either expressed interest or already adopted a hybrid cloud. It allows low latency due to the ability of private cloud platforms to be cut down to handle specific tasks; and enforced security, provided by more reliable encryption methods used within the private cloud architecture. 

Talking about cloud service providers, Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud vendor that allows businesses to keep commonly accessed data on public servers and store sensitive data on private servers to ensure better control. 

Multi-cloud

Beyond hybrid models, many companies want to commit to multi-cloud solutions as well. TechJury predicts that by the end of 2022, 90% of businesses will have a multi-cloud architecture. 

Multi-cloud means the deployment of two or more cloud platforms. This approach helps companies avoid vendor lock-in, as well as offers a better user experience by using fast, low-latency connections to significantly improve application response time. Also, with the use of several public clouds, organizations get the opportunity to scale easier and move data across platforms faster. 

Still, this type of cloud model has its peculiarities: the management and monitoring of multiple cloud resources and their costs is a more complex task, so close attention to details and reliable tracking tools are required. 

Serverless

On top of the two cloud-delivery models we’ve covered before, serverless cloud computing is also pivotal to the future IT landscape change. Mordor Intelligence claims that the popularity of serverless cloud computing is expected to grow by 22.6% in 2026.

Serverless cloud computing is a cloud model where infrastructure is orchestrated by cloud service providers, so businesses free themselves from managing and maintaining servers. That’s why this model is especially popular with developers – it allows them to focus only on building and running the applications. Additionally, serverless cloud platforms are scalable and can easily be adapted to changing needs or demands of the customers. 

Trend 2: AI and ML implementation for business intelligence

The market value of artificial intelligence will reach $850.61 billion by 2028, according to Verified Market Research. 

Machine learning and artificial intelligence offer marvelous potential benefits for companies: they both allow the processing of large amounts of data and do it faster, easier, and more effectively, without human involvement. The opportunity to automate various operations saves a lot of time and allows team members to concentrate on more complex tasks. 

Also, ML and AI provide businesses with insights into industry trends, customer preferences, and behavior. This feature helps organizations understand their target audience more clearly and satisfy their needs. 

Trend 3: Focus on security and compliance solutions

Today businesses are concerned about the security of their cloud resources and the compliance of their data as never before. It’s explained by the number of cyber-attacks that doubled up during the last two years. 

According to Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses, but only 14% of the companies are prepared to defend themselves. 

Cloud providers respond to the remaining and growing interest in security by offering improved security features and compliance certifications. There are some examples of such solutions:

• Cloud disaster recovery (CDR) refers to the strategies and cloud-based services that enterprises use to back up data and restore it to resume normal operations after a disaster. Also, CDR is used to balance workload and replicate cloud services and products across several cloud vendors.
• Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a cloud security architecture used for access management and connectivity control between devices, cloud applications, on-premises infrastructures, and so on. It serves as an SSO service that provides companies with facilitated access to their multiple cloud apps alongside the highest levels of security and compliance. Gartner’s study shows that at least 40% of companies will create firm commitments to incorporate SASE in their toolkit. 

Trend 4: Sustainability is a top priority

Companies started to pay closer attention to environmental issues, as nowadays customers want to see a sustainable approach in all aspects of their life, including work. 

Cloud computing deployment is more sustainable than local computing – the usage of cloud platforms and services reduces an individual company’s carbon footprint and physical waste. According to Northwestern, companies can potentially reduce energy consumption by 87% if they move their applications to the cloud.

Even though cloud computing helps companies to run businesses according to sustainability concepts, the cloud still impacts the environment. Computing currently contributes 1.4% towards the global greenhouse gas footprint, and it’s forecasted to reach 14% by 2040.

According to these statistics, it’s clear that cloud providers need to adapt their services to protect our planet. They’ve already started solving this issue in some different ways. For instance, Google is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world. Additionally, this company uses machine learning trained on historical weather data to adapt its data centers’ cooling systems proactively. 

In turn, Microsoft is experimenting with aquatic data centers to reduce the power used by artificial cooling systems. Amazon Web Services want to reach 100% renewable energy use by 2025, by creating solar and wind power projects. 

Trend 5: Taking cloud cost optimization seriously

A lot of companies migrated to the cloud as it allowed them to quickly respond to demand fluctuation – scale up or down resources based on a workload. The opportunity to scale easier was game-changing as the whole process of “purchasing additional resources” took less time and was almost effortless. 

Sooner companies realized that they purchase far more resources than needed. First of all, because it was easy and required no manual installment. Secondly, companies couldn’t get a full consumption picture as used multiple cloud vendors’ products. That is why sooner they started to pay extra attention to the cost-saving practices offered by cloud providers (native tools) and third-party solutions. Without careful cloud assets management and its continuous optimization, there are more chances to go over the budget. 

With the advent of multi-cloud, a new generation of cloud management platforms emerged to help businesses understand, optimize and predict their monthly cloud costs. One example of a cloud management solution is Binadox. It provides users with a clear picture of their expenditures across multiple cloud platforms. 

Additionally, it has numerous features like tagging, rightsizing, and automation rules that help companies not only reduce cloud bills but also facilitate the decision-making process. With the help of such tools as Binadox cost optimization becomes achievable and realistic in 2022.

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