Will Data Centers Move to the Cloud?

The power of cloud computing is gradually shifting to make on-site data centers obsolete.

According to Graham Croock, Director of IT Audit, Risk and Cyber Lab at BDO: “By 2025, 70% of the world’s processing servers will be in the cloud.” Rather than storing data centers in a physical location, companies in the future would potentially pay to host their data in the cloud.

While possible today, the move toward cloud storage has been slow. Businesses have been reluctant to make the change until they are sure of the specifics. They want to know who will have access to the data and how service providers will manage it. Handing over their data to a third-party carries significant risk, and many business leaders are not yet sure how an unknown entity would handle access to their data. Should a service provider become targeted by foreign hackers, domestic hackers or rival companies where sensitive data is accessed, the result could be devastating. To alleviate their concerns, business leaders, CIOs and board members are working to verify a safe environment that their critical data could be held in.

Moving data centers to the cloud is not without its advantages. Hardware specialists will become obsolete, though support personnel will likely be unaffected. The potential savings from no longer requiring hardware specialists may be moot, as an increased number of data and analytics experts, along with infrastructure optimization specialists would be required to manage efficiency.

Ultimately, service providers will need to alleviate business leaders’ apprehension to move data centers before the change happens; however, the speed at which processing power and data speeds continue to increase means that those companies that waver too may end up behind.