Texas CEO Magazine January|February 2014 | Page 10

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DEPT

by John Engates

CLOUD PREDICTIONS FOR 2014
Five Changes Bringing Tomorrow to Today

Last year, in my 2013 cloud predictions, I
focused on Big Data and the rise of cloudy
SSDs. And this year, those predictions
became reality: in 2013 Rackspace launched
new Performance Cloud Servers with SSD
storage and businesses all over are enjoying
the benefits of analyzing and getting true
value out of critical data sets of all shapes
and sizes. And it wasn’t just Rackspace;
several other cloud providers followed suit
with solid state storage-based offerings to
keep up.
As I look forward to 2014, I see cloud
computing continuing its growth and finding
new ways to simplify just about everyone’s
needs – consumers and businesses alike. But
the cloud as we know it today will undergo

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a metamorphosis – open source projects will
continue to flourish to solve niche business problems; and the nascent technology
of containers will reap the benefit of open
source’s speed of innovation. At the same
time, IT departments will continue transforming but still be pressured to do more
with less. And the cloud will power tiny
devices from futuristic smart watches to
almost-robotic computer glasses.
Here are my predictions for cloud computing in 2014:
The Cloud Ushers In a New Era In
Wearable Technology
Under Armour’s late 2013 acquisition of
mobile workout app MapMyFitness and
Nike’s continued sponsorship of TechStars

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Nike+ Accelerator validates that wearable
technology is heating up and here to stay.
Athletic apparel manufacturers will attempt
to catch up with one another in a war for
data about users’ exercising habits. This will
also continue in other areas such as smart
watches, glasses and goggles, and medical devices. The staggering amount of data
generated by the ever-increasing number of
these wearable devices needs to be stored
and analyzed somewhere, and what better
place than the cloud, where it can be seamlessly transferred between device and server?
This will also usher in other ecosystems of
app developers and plugins as these devices
emerge as platforms and APIs are exposed.
The vendors that help users make the most
of this data will be the winners and define
the direction of the market.
Specialized Clouds Emerge
Until now, clouds generally fell into two
buckets: public and private. In the New
Year, the idea of workloads running where
they perform the best will prevail and new
clouds that focus on specific application
tasks and workloads will rise. It’s the era of
best-fit technology – developers no longer
have to tailor their apps to the architecture,