Distributed Cloud Computing has already made it to Gartner’s top ten strategic technology trends of 2020. New-age business processes are being designed to make use of distributed cloud infrastructure, applications,and databases to address modern workflows and their requirements. With the advent of advanced technologies such as distributed cloud computing, companies have accelerated the move away from their traditional ways of thinking and are now open to making the cloud central to their business strategies.

To accommodate a huge number of customers and growing volumes of data, traditional companies are now making the strategic shift by embracing the technology necessary for them to become cloud-driven companies. Clearly, cloud-native giants such as Facebook and Google have not only successfully adopted cloud, but they are visibly reaping the benefits of their cloud move. The sense is that to gain a competitive advantage in the market, companies have to scale-up their cloud strategy. And those who won’t make the move will stagnate, or worse.

This is a paradigm shift for many,which also means that there are a lot of questions to be answered before and after they adopt these technologies.

But the most fundamental question is, should companies care about distributed cloud?How can it impact their business!

1. Understanding Distributed Cloud Computing–
   With distributed cloud computing,you get computation, storage, and networking in a micro-cloud located outside the centralized cloud. Edge computing is a very good example of distributed cloud technology. Distributed cloud computing establishes computing, closer to the end-user,thus enhancing security.
   This distributed cloud model brings more agility, thereby giving enterprises better business outcomes.
2. Personalize Cloud Strategy–
   The biggest advantage of the distributed cloud is that it allows companies to diversify and still personalize their cloud strategy. The distributed cloud also allows companies to pick and choose the various capabilities of different cloud providers and solutions to align with their specific business needs.What makes distributed cloud so popular is that it gives immense flexibility to companies to be able to pick different cloud providers, solutions, and infrastructures depending upon the type of applications they want to address.
   So, while companies want to make this shift, they also need to prepare. They will need to make changes to the existing infrastructure to create robust connectivity between different modules of the cloud environment.
3. Prioritize Business intelligence–
   Talking about impactful applications, enterprises now want to weave business intelligence into their IT infrastructure and distributed cloud computing is supporting this move. They are focused on what more they can do with the data available to them. The distributed cloud allows the scaling of data storage and processing capabilities for companies. This is allowing companies to adopt and take advantage of other advanced technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, etc. This integration is helping companies to leverage business intelligence and predictive insights for enhanced profitability.
   Enterprises can now go beyond capturing their operational data and embed intelligence into their core operations, bringing in more agility and productivity. This intelligence also facilitates capturing interactions between the company and the customers to analyze and evaluate products, services, and the effectiveness of overall business functions.
   Going forward, the cloud is also likely to play a bigger role in shaping the overall IT strategy of companies. Offering a more collaborative IT structure; it can help bring together operations data and customer data to create a better product experience and an enhanced workplace experience too.
4. Data and enhanced Customer experience–
   While the cloud facilitates data-processing in real-time, it also enables functions that manage that data.
   Better data management can lead to a meaningful rationalization of the data foundation. Clean, current, accurate, consistent, and relevant data can drive strategies for enhanced customer experience. Data management helps drive agility in responding to the needs of the customer. It can help in understanding the various preferences of the customers, enhance response methods, and power the building of long-term business relations built on a more customized solutions’ approach.
5. Distributed Cloud and Security–
   While enterprises are looking at distributed cloud computing as a boon, some of the companies that still hesitate to adopt cloud are doing so due to some perceived security issues. Distributed cloud has data distributed over a large number of machines and networks, wireless sensors, mobile devices, etc. This scattered data can mean higher risks of security breaches and can make data security in the cloud more complicated than centralized systems.
   However, a lot depends upon the individual company data compliance stance, IT regulations, governance controls, and data security administration policies.Companies that can address security concerns with well-managed cloud computing infrastructure stand to gain, while still staying secure.

Conclusion:

IT is becoming the backbone of business performance. But businesses are looking at solutions that can simplify the complex nature of their IT infrastructure. They want to make IT incredibly manageable,driving better business outcomes. The distributed cloud makes it easy to integrate new technologies within a seemingly simpler IT infrastructure.

While enterprises are already looking beyond just capturing operational data; this method of cloud computing offers a lot more in terms of flexibility, convenience, cost control, and, most importantly,nurturing specific business applications like enterprise intelligence!
There’s no doubt that 2020 will be the year where enterprises will dive into the distributed cloud. The business case is just too compelling.