Technology has helped businesses to continue operating this year, and the cloud has excelled — going forward, it will only play a larger role in the enterprise. 

According to CloudTech, cloud spending is expected to grow from $229 billion USD in 2019 to $500 billion USD in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3%.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba, are expected to grow, and by the end of 2021, 60% of companies will leverage containers on public cloud platforms and 25% of developers will use serverless.

As this market continues its growth and evolution, here are some trends to watch in 2021.

Serverless computing
Enterprises rely on serverless computing as it provides space to work on core products without the pressure of managing or operating servers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella approves of serverless cloud and believes serverless computing can not only respond and focus on back-end computing but also become key to the imminent future for distributed computing.

According to the Flexera 2020 State of the Cloud report, serverless was among the top five fastest-growing PaaS cloud services for 2020,

Hybrid cloud joins providers
Choosing between hybrid, private, or public cloud environments, has been a challenge for some organizations — each offers advantages and disadvantages when it comes to performance, flexibility, security, and compliance.

In 2019, the actual number of companies using hybrid cloud was 58%, up 6% from 2018. Hybrid cloud benefits include security, speed, and control. Hybrid cloud optimizes the network to reduce the latency and speeds up the data so that it can reach where it needs to be. It can also customize the end of their hybrid cloud model, optimize it, and adjust it according to their needs rather than trusting a third-party cloud provider.

The continuous demand for hybrid cloud could lead the world’s biggest providers to partially break out of their walled garden approach. By collaborating and introducing some interoperability, they can continue to satisfy multi-cloud demands. This will allow better data sharing and access between partners, who may be working across diverse applications and standards.

Virtual Cloud Desktops
A virtual cloud desktop is the software requirements of a device being fully managed by cloud service providers. All the user needs is a screen and some basic hardware while the rest of the processing power will be seamlessly handled by cloud-based services.

Virtual cloud desktop users only pay on cloud usage, eliminating costs associated with Updating the existing hardware, acquiring powerful new hardware, and the disposal of redundant computing equipment.

Desktop-as-a-service, is a model of computing offered by Amazon via the Workspaces platform and Microsoft with Windows Virtual Desktop. Google also offers functionality through its Chromebook devices. This can increase efficiency across a workforce by ensuring everyone is using up-to-date, synchronized technology.