While front-end collaboration, shopping, and gaming solutions are at the forefront of public consciousness, the public cloud and its enabling technologies are backstopping the massive shift to remote work and entertainment.
Office closures, social distancing, and shelter-in-place orders have led to sustained demand in users of collaboration, shopping, and entertainment services as the entire world transforms personal interactions to virtual ones.
Thus far, that unprecedented shift has gone off. As millions of worldwide work hard to stay productive, the public cloud has enabled video conferencing, remote project collaboration, e-commerce, education, gaming, and streaming video companies to meet unexpected-for-demand.
“We have taken measures to prepare, and we are confident we will be able to meet customer demands for capacity in response to COVID-19,”
is the only statement of AWS spokesperson
Businesses and consumers appreciate the resilience that has been shown in recent weeks by front-end applications like Zoom, Skype, and Slack. Still, it’s the back-end infrastructure of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud that keep those much-needed services running smoothly.
And it’s not just the hyperscalers that are rising to the challenge of a potentially transformative moment in the history of technology.
Due to the coronavirus crisis, the sudden shift to remote work and socialization wouldn’t be possible without software solutions that enable rapid, secure, and consistent application environments.
The cloud applications boom has fundamentally transformed how businesses operate. Virtually every application now runs in the cloud, making it easier than ever to acquire and leverage those applications to make businesses more agile and efficient. The most important that it has enabled a world of mobility where users can be productive from any location, as access to those applications is no longer restricted to being in the office. It has also made possible emergency work-from-home by the coronavirus outbreak.
Cloud services companies allow customers to rent remote computing power, scaling up and down usage, and associated costs, as needed. The cloud has constantly changed the old model of organizations building and owning their servers and data centers, which takes time, requires large up-front capital outlays, and ongoing maintenance costs. It leaves them with excess computing capacity that goes unused except during brief periods of peak demand.
A business running on the cloud that suffers from outbursts in customer traffic to its website can immediately call on servers in a global network of Amazon or Microsoft data centers to handle the load. When the traffic fades, they can turn off those services. Equally, if a company needs to perform a complex analysis or test of AI and ML Software Development algorithm, it can rent nearly limitless computing power from a cloud provider for a few hours, rather than incurring the cost of owning it.
Sending users data directly to the cloud allows users to connect with speed and security as any amount of bandwidth—even the minimum 1000Mbps provided by Google Fiber, for example.
As you see, the digital world has utterly changed. If you are still using the desktop applications that can’t provide work from home to your employees or do it through a VPN service. It’s about time to think about the transition from desktop to cloud-based application that will open new opportunities to your company and your customers.
Cloud Computing Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The fact that the pandemic has changed the way companies use cloud technology is undeniable. For six months now, we have been observing the high speed of cloud computing adoption. Let’s take a look at what trends have emerged in cloud computing during the pandemic.
Implementation speed and costs
With the shift to cloud computing, companies have struggled to get their processes up and running as quickly as possible so that they can work anywhere, from anywhere. With this approach, investments in the transition to the cloud began to grow.
The cloud’s value in providing remote access and storage has become even more apparent with COVID-19, ensuring business continuity and reducing risk.
The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that:
- organizations with strong digital capabilities are better equipped to cope with this new situation;
- existing digitalization trends are accelerating; many have stressed the speed and depth of this recent transformation;
- crashes will inevitably occur, and you must be prepared for them.
In this context, the intrinsic characteristics associated with cloud computing architecture have become vital tools to help companies adapt to new conditions and address situations that pose a real risk to the provision of core services.
The cloud is not just a way to maintain service continuity. Still, it is also a tool for improving the out-of-office (such as collaboration tools) combined with other technologies to serve customers and change regulatory requirements. Many companies are changing their long-term strategies, where deep adoption of cloud technologies can be a crucial factor.