Concluding our two-part series, here are the final five cloud trends your business needs to watch (you can find part one of the series here.):
1. Cloud native AI services facilitate new apps
Generative AI is set to deliver a seismic change in corporate IT – or so the industry media keeps telling us. But the fact is that cloud-based AI algorithms democratise the technology, making it available to virtually any business.
It’s impossible to predict exactly how those AI technologies will be used, but wider availability ensures we will see millions of innovations in the coming years. And the access-anywhere nature of cloud services ensures that everyone can get involved.
2. RAG + vector databases improve genAI
One of the most common criticisms of current public AI implementations is their inherent untrustworthiness. AI will always generate a response, even if it is wrong. This unpredictability makes these systems unsuitable for mission-critical operations where accuracy is essential.
Step forward retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. RAG offers greater control of the data being fed into your AI algorithms, helping to prevent outdated or inaccurate information from poisoning your results. This can be combined with vector databases which provide reference sources in genAI output, so you can quickly and easily verify accuracy.
3. Edge computing for cloud innovation
IoT and the cloud have been unhappy bedfellows for years. The latency between edge-based sensors and cloud-based data centres is still too great for many real-time applications.
The evolution of edge computing is seeing data being moved closer to sensors to reduce latency. Increased localised computing power is finally enabling true real-time processing and decision-making whilst taking advantage of cloud-like flexibility and scalability.
4. No code expands development
Data scientists remain in high demand, delaying many projects because businesses simply do not have enough skills and resources to meet demand. These delays affect operations, limiting the capacity for change.
No code / low code technologies can overcome many of these challenges. Simplified drag-and-drop tools allow end users to build their own analytics dashboards and applications for instance. They have access to the data they need, freeing developers to focus on other mission-critical projects.
5. Application containerisation for enhanced control
The move to CI/CD has forced businesses to re-evaluate the way they build software. The solution has been to adopt containerisation as the new development standard. By including all dependencies and configurations into a self-contained package, developers can maximise the flexibility of the cloud.
Containerised apps are fully portable and can be scaled up or down as demand changes Importantly, new containers can be deployed to distributed systems quickly and efficiently, without affecting availability or performance. In fact, containers are the ultimate cloud-native development tool.
So there you have it – ten cloud developments your business needs to embrace. If you have any questions or would like help exploring these cloud trends and their benefits, please get in touch..