Here are three cloud-computing-related trends and predictions that address two currently divergent priorities.
As data plays a crucial role in the learning and decision-making processes of AI systems, the demand for data processing is poised to experience exponential growth. In 2024, we expect to see even more businesses harnessing AI to drive efficiency across their operations.
However, a prominent yet surmountable hurdle is the anticipated environmental impact of AI, stemming from the energy and data center resources required to operate larger computing models. This underscores the pressing need for greener data centers equipped with the necessary power and scalability to address the growing carbon footprint of emerging technologies.
Fortunately, water-cooling technology has proven itself as a far more energy-efficient and sustainable way of cooling, eliminating the need for air conditioning — with significant benefits to costs and environmental impact. Collaborating with efficient providers can pave the way for a clear, bright trajectory toward a more environmentally responsible future.
Navigating data sovereignty intricacies
In establishing a truly secure digital ecosystem in the Asia-Pacific region, governments are strengthening initiatives to secure consumer data amid the escalating dependence on digital technologies, with a particular emphasis on Cloud.
However, government policies and regulations cannot be the sole benchmark. Cloud providers and other technological entities must collaboratively address the escalating threat of cyber breaches by implementing additional safeguards.
Countries across Asia are intensifying efforts to develop data governance strategies and legislation, and enforce new laws focused on data privacy, security, and protection. Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, for example, have either adopted or are in the process of implementing comprehensive privacy laws. Despite that, disparities in data protection policies among countries persist: these variations create a complex regulatory landscape, leaving businesses perplexed about varying enforcement practices worldwide and impeding local customers from fully leveraging cloud services.
Particularly, in the context of the APAC digital economy, ensuring unimpeded and secure data flows through the cloud will be crucial for the region’s success.
Ultimately, these considerations will see data sovereignty grow to become a driver of data storage trends in 2024 and beyond. Given the intricacies involved, Asia’s progression in embracing cloud solutions has to emphasize transparency.
Cloud providers need to offer enhanced support through local compute and storage capabilities to meet evolving data compliance needs. Transparency must be the established norm sought by businesses, alongside with cloud providers willing to adhere to this standard.
Addressing specific computational needs
With a trend of some organizations opting to migrate cloud workloads back to on-premises infrastructure due to factors such as management decisions, data security concerns, higher-than-expected costs, and limited access to new technologies, it is clear that, in the rush to adopt cloud computing, organizations relocating workloads without proper consideration often experienced suboptimal performance or had to undergo extensive refactoring to achieve cloud optimization.
Yet, relying solely on ordinary servers can prove insufficient for the diverse and intricate business requirements of such organizations. This year, businesses in this category will increasingly turn to fit-for-purpose servers, such as bare metal servers, to provide the robust platforms required for handling their sensitive data effectively.
Bare metal servers offer dedicated and single-tenant hardware, ensuring enhanced performance, predictability, and security. This bespoke approach not only addresses the specific computational needs associated with emerging technologies, but also caters to the heightened sensitivity and regulatory considerations surrounding the processing of confidential and proprietary data.
As such, we expect to see businesses actively seeking out these specialized server solutions as an essential component of their strategy to create a secure and high-performance environment for processing and managing their critical data.
