Is this the end of cloud computing?
In the world where data and new information is produced every second, cloud serves as a convenient place to send it all to. Yet, there are voices telling us these practices are about to change.
At the end of 2016, Peter Levine, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz provoked the public to discuss the future of cloud computing.
In short, his premise was that the development of the Internet of Things devices and machine learning will soon make cloud computing services, as we know them, obsolete.
Why?
Some IoT devices, based on machine learning, gather incredible amounts of data, so they already act like a little cloud.
The reason why they must work this way is simple – they ought to act on the spot, in real time, so they don’t really have time to send the data to the cloud and wait for the answer (Levine’s example portrayed self-driving cars that rely on quick reaction time).
Edge computing is the future
Peter Levine thinks that edge computing is the future of data-storage – it is basically the exact thing we described above. Smart devices, like autonomous cars, will become ‘tiny’ clouds on their own, thanks to having the computing power of hundreds of PCs. They will, therefore, be able to perform all crucial operations on their own.
The other reason why this course of events seems so obvious for Levine, is the fact that keeping up the bandwidth for those multiple devices would be almost impossible. That’s why smart devices will only send the most crucial data to the cloud for analysis. The results of this analysis may then be fed back to the devices, allowing them to learn from each other.
If you wish to find out more about the shift from the cloud, listen to Levine’s interview.
Levine’s concept seems very revolutionary, yet he doesn’t fully mean the cloud will be eliminated. Its role will, however, decrease.
What are your thoughts on Levine’s theory? We invite you to leave your answers below.
