Cloud is a big buzz these days. Everyone is talking about SAAS, IAAS, PAAS and so many other AAS. Though cloud brings out a lot of great benefits, which I will not go into details, it has its shortcomings as well. For ex.
- Its capital intensive for the providers – Cloud providers have to build huge data centers and spend a lot of money upfront which is recovered over a long period with subscription fees. This is a big barrier to entry for new providers and can create monopoly for really large providers.
- Net neutrality rule can really jack up the price – Now that the providers are handed over the power to control speed based on content, cloud providers like amazon might be asked to pay a shiny silver penny for unrestricted and fast access.
- Dependency on provider – Provider decides the price, where and how it stores the data, what services to offer etc.
You can compare cloud services to a taxi company. They provide you with same benefit as cloud such as low capital spending (you don’t need to buy a car of your own), variable need based spending (call the cab when you need to go), elastic (family of 7? No problem, we have a bigger car), one flat fee (no need to worry about gas, maintenance, salary, EMI etc) and high availability (feeling sleepy or buzzed? We have someone to drive you home). Even with all these benefits, that industry was completely disrupted by ride sharing services like Uber, Lyft etc. What made it possible you ask? Technology.
I predict that with 5G, cloud service industry will be completely disrupted as well. Four technologies will play a key role in this disruption.
- Distributive Computing – In Future, rather than using a large powerful machines or server farms, companies will lease resources for millions or billions of small devices running all over the world. Task will be broken down into small chunks that would then be processed by these machines. Owner or the machine will be paid a small fee for utilization of his computer resources. This would eliminate capital requirement for data centers. Distributive computing is not new but the biggest barrier till now was internet latency which should end with 5G.
- Block chain – Block chain will allow applications to truly maintain a provider free ecosystem. Applications will be able to maintain distributed data information on a public register. Application user will maintain the private key to their data. Data can be replicated across multiple computers and multiple computers can be registered to perform same task in priority. This will lead to loss less system with high availability.
- Tougher and lighter encryption – As the data would be distributed across leased computers. Unbreakable encryption will play a key role in ensuring data security.
- 5G – 5G will play very critical role in this disruption as it will provide the network on which all this is possible. There will be no latency, data loss will be minimal and access will be almost universal. This will provide the perfect backbone for these new type of applications.
This might not happen this year or next year but this will happen soon enough. Which also means, tomorrows applications or providers will have to change to adopt to these new standards.
Saurav Khandelwal is a solution architect who is working every day to simplify business processes in HR and Technology for large multinational organization. Saurav has led cross functional teams and border less initiatives at PNC Financials, General Motors, Hannaford Brothers and Covidien PLC. View Sauravs‘ profile at http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=47931968
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