This is the time of year when people issue their "Top 10" lists for what's on the horizon for our organizations, workplaces and careers in the year ahead. By now, you likely have "Top-10" fatigue, so I'm not going to pile on here. Rather, let's look at the one big megatrend that's shaping our world over the next 12 months, and try to figure out the why and how.
In the year ahead, the Internet of Things (IoT) is the major force that will drive the role of cloud in our organizations, workplaces and careers. It will also work the other way around as well -- cloud will move IoT forward. I'm sure you have been hearing plenty about IoT and its implications, but let's face it -- most organizations don't have the capacity to handle what's coming down the pike. Terabytes and terabytes of data streaming in, demands for analytical power at all stages, and a search for ways to leverage it to deliver responsiveness to the customer.
The rise of wearable computing devices has been well-documented. But that's only one small piece of the IoT data surge, Look at the ways IoT will be part of our businesses:
- Through connected cars and vehicles. Auto manufacturers already are transforming cars into computers on wheels. (The ultimate "mobile device," right?) Insurers are aggressively adopting telematics, in which policyholders agree to discounts in exchange for having their driving habits monitored. Fleet managers can also monitor the movements and driving habits of their drivers.
- Companies in the travel and entertainment business can track and analyze customer preferences, even while they're traveling. For example, a recent Google paper describes how Red Roof Inns has been matching flight delays and cancellations to trigger mobile ads on travelers' phones to offer nearby lodging.
- Manufacturers are monitoring products, post-sale, to help customers save on energy costs and provide predictive maintenance services. For example, Rolls Royce, a producer of jet engines, now provides monitoring services for its engines in flight.
- Healthcare is being disrupted in a major way, thanks to the rise of monitoring devices and new forms of connectivity between healthcare providers, administrators, facilities, and patients -- not to mention injections of artificial intelligence from online systems such as IBM's Watson. This is all made possible by the convergence of IoT and cloud computing -- no medical facility could do it alone with on-premises systems.
These are just a few outstanding examples from the many ways IoT data is being leveraged for new types of services, and, indeed, whole new business models.
It also means lots and lots and lots of data. As we explored in a post here at Forbes last month, Cisco predicts that soon, 92% of all workloads will be cloud-borne, and IoT and associated big data is the driving force behind this evolution. To recap what we reported then, database, analytics and IoT workloads will account for 22% of total business workloads by the year 2020, up from 20% in 2015. The total volume of data generated by IoT will reach 600 zetabytes (zetabytes!) per year by 2020, 275 times higher than projected traffic going from data centers to end users/devices (2.2 ZB); 39 times higher than total projected data center traffic (15.3 ZB).
Gulping down all this data requires executives to take their IoT-charged enterprises to the next level. They have a choice: keep buying and installing on-premises servers and storage arrays to try to stay ahead of the data surge, or contract with cloud providers to worry about it. Or, if they stick with on-premises systems, at least contract with the clouds to handle surges or workload spikes -- more of a hybrid arrangement.
The question is, is a typical organization ready to start supporting the storage, processing and analytics associated with terabytes of data surging through? How about the capacity needed to replicate or back up all this data? In the year ahead, cloud will be the foundation for an abundance of innovative use cases and new forms of business arising from IoT across all industries.
