Global research finds that cloud adoption will continue to peak. The cloud market is now mainstream, predicted to reach $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019.

IDC’s CSuite Study three years ago found the majority 90% of New Zealand organisations already believed they are consuming some form of cloud-based service, moving towards a cloud-first based IT strategy. New Zealand CEOs focused on three areas: IT environment security, IT improvement or simplification, and creating a robust governance structure.

With New Zealand one of the latest to be set for a Microsoft datacentre development, the cloud is hoped to have a more impactful role in New Zealand’s job and economic development, promising to empower new Zealanders with new jobs, knowledge, and cloud computing capabilities.

Where has the cloud come from?

Cloud computing came from an idea of the “Intergalactic Computer Network” – introduced by network researcher J. C. R. Licklider in 1969, describing a vision of everyone on the globe interconnected and able to access data and programmes from anywhere.

VMware was perhaps the first critical development, making it possible to run an operating system simultaneously in an isolated environment – even inside a completely different computer.

The groundwork was also laid by the creation of enterprise web-applications by Salesforce, and Xen’s hypervisors that allow multiple operating systems to be executed simultaneously on a single computer.

Cloud-computing work began in full thrust in 2006, with both Microsoft and Amazon launching new online web services products. Its evolution has involved an upturning of conventional wisdom – to effectively move away from on-premises and fully controlled, toward on-cloud and publicly shared.

Today, on the cloud not only can users draw on the expansive range of computing offerings to drive most spheres of business, they can also market and lease their own wares.

What are ‘cloud capabilities’?

As many more consumers and business owners see the benefits of the cloud, such as its web-based and subscription pay-as-you-go payment options, new capabilities are emerging.

It’s not just Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings. The reach of the cloud is much more encompassing. It brings with it new capabilities for Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS).

Cloud-based business removes one-off IT investments, and opens customers up to a whole breadth of new networking, security, AI and other IT suite capabilities. The cloud, so far, has been more about building on what companies already do than building new and futuristic applications.

As more of us join service providers on the cloud, using what’s available and sharing our own innovations, we’ve made major strides in cloud computing together specially in the last decade. Today, we’re well upon reached Licklider’s 1969 prediction – most companies use the cloud one way or another, be it via Microsoft’s expansive 365 suite, or any number of the software online.

Will the New Zealand datacentre look something like this? Microsoft’s data center in San Antonio, Texas. Credit: extremetech.com.

Together, on the cloud, we have the opportunity to help our customers, our partners, ourselves – to use emerging tech breakthroughs and achieve new goals.