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Discover the history of cloud computing. Cloud’s current momentum can often make younger generations believe this technology is a thing of the 21^st century. In fact, sharing computing resources is an idea that dates back to the 1950s, when the same mainframe computers were accessed by all company employees via locally connected dumb terminals.

But it was not until 1969 that computer scientists lead by J.C.R. Licklider premiered ARPANET, the world’s first network connecting computers across vast distances. The system enabled communication and time-sharing of computing resources between different educational and military institutions. It later evolved into a network of networks — The Internet.

Licklider had a vision: an ‘intergalactic computer network’ that, beyond keeping everyone connected, would allow us to access data and applications regardless of location. More than half a century later, his vision is closer than ever to becoming a reality. About 59% of the global population has now access to the Internet, while cloud computing has gone from buzzword to the lifeblood of today’s enterprise.

The technology has indeed proved itself indispensable to digital transformation – cloud has been a decisive factor in the business world’s ability to withstand the COVID-19 crisis, supporting the sudden shift to remote work and helping companies quickly deploy and scale up IT infrastructure.

But what is the history of cloud computing ? Where exactly is the cloud right now, and where is it headed?

History of cloud computing: The various pathways to cloud

Current cloud offerings vary depending on how they approach data storage and application management. Also, there are three types of deployments: public, private and hybrid.

Public cloud offerings lease cloud infrastructure and solutions to multiple customers who all share the same network, with every customer’s data siloed from the rest. On the other hand, private cloud is used by a single organisation, whether the user owns it or leases it from a provider.

Then, private clouds tend to be tailor-made to the meet needs of the specific company.

Finally, the hybrid cloud combines both approaches. Companies pursue the hybrid approach for its versatility, which allows them to mix and match resources and IT skills to obtain the best of both worlds.

A new global study by data virtualisation company Denodo identifies hybrid cloud as the most widespread deployment path.

Hybrid configurations account for 42% of all deployments. Public cloud takes second place with an 18% share – head-to-head with private cloud, which accounts for 17% of enterprise configurations.

Two-thirds of respondents (66%) use the cloud for analytics and business intelligence, while 42% of companies leverage the technology for logical data warehousing. Data science is the focus of 41% of respondents.

Everything as a Service

Public cloud offerings have evolved well beyond data management and storage. They now focus on providing different services and can be further classified depending on the nature of these services. The most widespread are:

Software as a service (SaaS) solutions, which involve providers offering customers online access to applications they host
Platform as a service (PaaS) offerings, in which a third-party vendor provides hardware and software tools for companies to build applications, etc.
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) solutions, which comprise all those services involving the lease of virtualized computing resources like storage

The multi-cloud

Similarly with hybrid cloud, combining a variety of cloud services from different providers can help companies achieve the cloud ecosystem that best fits their needs. This strategy is known as multi-cloud.

The multi-cloud approach is rapidly gaining popularity among businesses, especially the bigger ones, and it is projected to soon become the industry standard. However, the use of different architectures and software among cloud providers can lead to cybersecurity, compatibility and operational issues. So that, cloud users are currently pushing for industry-wide standardisation to tackle this problem.

What’s next for the history and future of cloud computing

With at least 50% of the world’s business already circulating through the cloud, the technology’s role in the enterprise will only keep on growing. Furthermore, it’s convergence with emerging technologies like IoT and AI is opening a whole new realm of possibilities.

Chief amongst these is cloud edge. The approach combines edge computing – the processing and storage of IoT data closer to the device – and cloud to reduce latency, increase security and allow for greater flexibility. This is made possible by not having to send all data collected to a distant data centre for processing, but rather processing it on-site and only sharing the resulting insights.

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Digital transformation is well underway. An estimated 50% of all business data is already stored in the cloud; while 48% of this data can be considered sensitive in nature. These figures, which were reported on Monday in a global study by Thales and IDC, paint a promising future for the enterprise cloud industry. They also seem to signal growing confidence in the technology’s security and privacy capabilities. So, regarding data security, is your cloud data secure?

Data security: number and perception

The same survey revealed that only 57% of all cloud-stored sensitive data is protected by encryption, whereas 100% of respondents admit to having at least some unencrypted sensitive data in the cloud. One could think this constitutes further proof of the enterprise’s sense of data security. In reality, the number of respondents that feel their data is vulnerable to cyberthreats (86%) has increased considerably since last year’s report (67%). Furthermore, 47% of businesses report having been breached or failed a security test in the past year.

There is thus a clear disconnect between the perceived levels of data security and the actual measures being put in place. Many decision-makers are not paying enough attention to their own danger alerts, and that is dangerous.

So — how can you tell if this happening in your organization? There are a few telltale signs.

Choosing the right multi-cloud partners

Achieving optimum levels of data protection is becoming increasingly difficult as more and more companies turn to different cloud providers to meet their various business needs. The vast majority of businesses (81%) report using more than one infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) vendor. Meanwhile, 72% of organisations state they use between 11 and 100 software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications — That’s a lot of potentially breachable data living in the cloud.

Data security: how to implement a proper strategy

These multi-cloud environments add a layer of complexity on top of the already complicated world of cybersecurity. In turn, survey respondents identify complexity as the top barrier to implementing a proper data security strategy.

To protect data integrity, organisations must leverage the appropriate set of tools across platforms and partner with those vendors offering solutions that fit within their ecosystem. Ideally, your various security tools and protocols should cover both on-premises and cloud-based data and be compatible with one another.

If that’s not the case, it might be time to review your security architecture. Putting together the right team has also become essential for multi-cloud success. Consider hiring a cloud security specialist if you haven’t done so yet.

Data vs network security

Despite 83% of organisations planning to either maintain or increase their security spending in 2020, the portion of the security budget destined to data security remains marginal at 15.5%. Comparatively, companies spend much more on network security. This seems to be due to another important disconnect — that between the major perceived security threats and the reality behind most data breaches.

While more than half of businesses are worried about cybercriminals, terrorists and corporate espionage; everyday issues that tend to pose greater challenges to data integrity are often less cause for concern. Just in the UK alone, 90% of data breaches experienced in 2019 originated from a human error. Employee communications, system misconfigurations and privileged users with access to sensitive resources are all potential risks that network security cannot mitigate.

Data security: accesses and permissions

A great focus on data security is, therefore, highly recommended. Re-examine and restrict your access protocols and permissions, encrypt greater amounts of data and make sure to store and safeguard the keys properly. Moreover, invest in data recovery and backup tools.

Also, do not rely too much on your providers to protect your data. Sure, the cloud is fundamentally a shared responsibility environment. However, there are many proactive measures that you can implement internally to safeguard this data.

Remember – if there is a breach, it will be the company’s reputation the one to take the biggest hit, not the provider’s.

The threat of emerging tech

Although most experts do not see widespread quantum computing entering the scene until 15 or 20 years from now. The security risks this emerging technology represents are already in the minds of business leaders. Around 72%% of companies believe quantum computers will start disrupting their encryption efforts within 5 years.

Quantum computations can potentially decipher most cryptographic key systems used today. However, the technology is still in its infancy, and companies shouldn’t worry too much about its security implications just yet. But, if you’d like to start future-proofing your system, there are several vendors out there already working with quantum cryptography methods.