The COVID-19 Pandemic has boosted the Cloud services. Read on to know more about it…
The Cloud computing has been increasingly adopted by large organizations over the last decade. The business of renting computing power has transformed into an enormous industry with Amazon and Microsoft leading the way. Now, in the time of the coronavirus pandemic and with fears of a recession looming, cloud services may repeat the pattern of growth it experienced last time a recession hit. In addition to the adoption of the cloud, the shift to working from home has also given cloud-based services/applications a significant boost.
Remote Working
Working from home in the wake of the pandemic has highlighted the benefits of using cloud computing, with companies increasingly adopting it. During this time, there has been an unexpected spike in cloud usage, and cloud computing has made it less expensive and more comfortable for companies to manage their internet infrastructures and make an adjustment to computing needs on the go.
Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google — which are the three major players when it comes to cloud computing platforms – may be benefiting from the recent shift to work from home across the globe. They have been offering deep discounts to their clients. These companies have also been discounting their services, whereby they offer underlying infrastructure on rent to corporate networks. Microsoft, for example, has been pushing its messaging and collaboration tool Microsoft Teams, which is a direct competitor to Slack. Last month Microsoft said that the number of users on the tool has increased by 37%, with at least 900 million meetings and call minutes every day.
While not all kinds of work are compatible with telecommuting, cloud computing provides significant productivity improvements for those that are. Back office work, accounting, teaching/training, programming, web design, writing, editing, engineering, online marketing, consultancy, and various other jobs can be relegated to a remote work arrangement with relative ease.
E-Commerce
Amidst the lockdowns, there is still the need to get food and supplies. Almost all online retailers rely on the cloud to operate especially as they face a surge in transactions. Stores that still use traditional web hosting are likely to experience downtimes as they run out of network resources to handle the drastic increases in traffic. Cloud hosting solutions are highly scalable, so a sudden rise in traffic is unlikely to disrupt business.
Entertainment
Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and several other streaming services provide extensive lists of movies and series to binge watch on. For video gaming enthusiasts, online games on mobile devices or consoles can be a viable pastime. There are also entire industries built around game streaming–sites like Twitch for instance. On the other hand, social media activities are having a massive bump during the forced quarantine periods. Many are also doing vlogs as a way of entertaining people, inspiring others, and making some money on the side.
The Road Ahead
The COVID-19 pandemic sent hundreds of millions of people home worldwide. Work from home is now the only option for many. In this crisis, cloud companies suddenly are the backbone of a global virtual learning and collaboration experiment on a scale never previously experienced. While the Internet backbone has long been a lifeline and reached over half the world’s population in 2019, without scalable cloud services, the current disaster would be unimaginably worse.
