From travel restrictions to lockdowns, 2020 was a life-changing year for everyone. The year bolted everyone into survival mode, businesses and individuals alike. As the world started to adapt to the new normal, it gave rise to several trends.
The pandemic accelerated our journey to the online world. Everything shifted online from educational classes, health clinics, and virtual offices, forcing businesses to move to the cloud.
While the cloud is not a new phenomenon, its adoption had not gained momentum before 2020. However, the pandemic catalyzed the transition as businesses increasingly opt for cloud migration.
The Growing Cloud Market
According to Henrique Cecci, senior research director at Gartner, “The economic, organizational and societal impact of the pandemic will continue to catalyze digital innovation and adoption of cloud services.”
Gartner predicts that spending on public cloud services will grow by 21.7% in 2022 to reach $482 billion from $396 billion in 2021. Gartner also expects that by 2026, cloud spending will exceed 45% of IT spending. The three major contributors to this spending would be Saas, Iaas, and Paas.
The increase in cloud spending has a domino effect on cloud-related services, including cloud storage platforms and complementary ETL or data migration tools. The cloud storages market is expected to reach $222.5 billion by 2027.
What is Driving the Cloud Market?
The booming cloud market raises the question of a pandemic is the only driving factor behind this exponential growth. Is it just a trend that will die away, or is the cloud here to stay? Let’s look at some of the factors driving this cloud market and whether they are related to the pandemic only?
An increase in Data Storage needs
With the increasing proliferation of IoT devices, social media, and sensors everywhere, businesses drown in data. While this growth can somewhat be attributed to the pandemic and lives moving online, this change was due regardless.
Increasing data volume and variety comes with its challenges, especially when managing and storing data, and the cloud seems to be the solution to the problem. Cloud is scalable, flexible, and helps a company avoid hardware and maintenance costs.
Some of the major players in the cloud storages market include AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Major offerings by these players include Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud, which are object storages that help organizations manage data cost-effectively.
All cloud storages platforms come with high-security features. Plus, data can be divided into storage tiers. For example, S3 Data can be categorized according to its usage into four storage tiers, reducing storage bills.
Small Businesses
Tough times forced people to find alternative income sources, which led to a considerable increase in small businesses.
According to salesforce research half, a million businesses were started in January alone. 25.1% of the surveyed entrepreneurs stated pandemic because they were laid off.
You must be wondering about the correlation between the increase in small businesses and the cloud market.
Since small businesses are strapped for cash, they find cost-effective ways to develop applications over the cloud. It is easier to pay a licensing fee for the cloud rather than maintain an IT infrastructure in-house.
What is the future of the cloud?
The changing nature of data and a boom in small businesses are just a few factors driving the cloud market. The future of the cloud seems promising, and apparently, it is not just a fad that will die away.
The cloud is here to stay. Soon, all businesses would be somehow dependent on the cloud.