TECHNOLOGY

Is your head in
the cloud?
 Sie erleichtern die Zusammenarbeit und erhöhen die
Sicherheit: Wie Cloud-Dienste die Arbeitswelt revolutionieren.

Von RACHEL PREECE

ADVANCED US

O
ver the past decade, cloud computing has revolu-
tionized global business. Back in 2014, following
his appointment as Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella
predicted that “everything is going to be connected
to [the] cloud.” Forbes declared that “few technological advance-
ments have had as profound an impact as the rise of cloud com-
puting.” And in 2024, spending on cloud infrastructure is set to
top $1 trillion for the first time. But what exactly is the cloud,
and how can it help your business?
Simply put, the cloud is made up of various computing ser-
“If you don’t use the
vices — servers, databases, software, analytics, etc. — that are
available via the internet. Information is not physically stored
in one place, on a hard drive, for example. Instead, the main ser-
capabilities the cloud
vice providers, which include Amazon, Microsoft and Google,
rent out secure and reliable space for this data.
offers, you’ll fall
Companies are moving away from storing their data on in-
ternal hard drives for various reasons. One is flexibility — cloud
storage allows employees to access information from anywhere
behind. It’s a mistake”
in the world (provided they have an internet connection). It’s
no surprise that cloud usage greatly accelerated during the
pandemic.
Diego Peleteiro is technology director at Globant Germany,
a technology services organization that helps other companies
develop digitally. “In the past, CEOs were asking, ‘Is cloud com-
puting part of your strategy?’,” he told Business Spotlight. “And now,
it’s a question of how the cloud is a part of a company’s strategy.
If you don’t use the capabilities and opportunities the cloud of-
fers, you’ll fall behind. It’s a mistake.”
Globally, over 90 percent of companies utilize cloud services,
but things are different in Germany. As of July 2023, just 46.5
percent of German companies used cloud technology. Many be-
predict sth. utilize sth. , etw. nutzen
lieve this is because the largest cloud service providers are based , etw. prognostizieren
in the U.S., and German companies fear data security breaches. as of... , Stand ...
profound
Peleteiro believes that apprehension about the cloud is det- breach , Verletzung
, tiefgreifend
rimental to innovation. “No industry is safe,” he says. “Think trillion , Billion(en)
apprehension
about the automotive industry. Ten years ago, they didn’t see , Besorgnis
simply put
the need to innovate radically, then Tesla came along. Without , einfach gesagt
detrimental: be ~ to sth.
[)detrI(ment&l]
the cloud, you’re not fast enough. If companies are resistant, they
Illustration: Georg Lechner

hard drive , Festplatte , sich nachteilig auf etw.

will lose out.” Peleteiro suggests employing a multicloud strat- auswirken
accelerate [Ek(selEreIt]
egy — i.e. using various cloud service providers — to maximize , sich beschleunigen, i.e. [)aI (i:]
security. He says this approach is safer than relying on local IT zunehmen , das heißt, d. h.
infrastructure, such as internal servers, which is possibly out- fall behind vulnerable: be ~ to sth.
dated and vulnerable to cyberattacks. , ins Hintertreffen geraten , für etw. anfällig sein

TRENDS 3/2024 Business Spotlight 27

 The cloud is the place to be
As cybersecurity threats intensify, awareness of the benefits and
opportunities of cloud services is rising. The cloud offers better
security than most local networks can manage. According to
one Salesforce study, 94 percent of businesses say they see an
improvement in security after switching to the cloud.
While the initial cost of a switch might be high, the lon-
ger-term ROI makes the investment more viable. Providing
employees with easy remote access to company data saves time
and money. Moreover, most cloud services are pay-as-you-go,
meaning customers don’t pay for unnecessary services. Forbes es-
timates that businesses can save up to 50 percent on data-man-
agement costs when switching to the cloud from internal serv-
ers, as there’s less infrastructure that needs to be maintained.
Big cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS),
Microsoft Azure and Google, guarantee an uptime of 99.95 per-
cent for the majority of their services. Along with availability
comes a high level of reliability. Jeff Barr, from AWS, put this into
perspective: “If you store 10,000 objects with us, on average, we
may lose one of them every ten million years or so.”
Kelsey Hightower, software engineer
Formerly of Google, Hightower is an advocate
for open-source cloud computing infrastruc-
ture. In one interview, he was asked how tech
experts can help to build industry knowledge:
“You share it. That’s the trick. Someone has to share it.”
Betsy Beyer, technical writer at Google
Author and editor of several bestselling books, including the
seminal Site Reliability Engineering, Beyer is considered an import-
ant voice on how Google deals with cloud stability. She began
working at Google after responding to a “random posting on
Craigslist,” and has been making waves ever since.

Looking ahead
THE TOP CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDERS
So, what’s holding companies back? At present, big cloud pro-
viders are increasing their prices. In 2023, for example, Google • Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s
raised the price of its Workspace (a collection of cloud comput- largest cloud service provider, is also the
ing tools) by 20 percent. Also, companies that use one cloud
most profitable part of Amazon, generating
more than $22 billion in sales in the second
provider run the risk of vendor lock-in — a situation in which
quarter of 2023 alone. It controls around a
a company is unable to switch to another provider because of third of the global market.
the high cost and complexity of migrating large volumes of data. • Microsoft Azure is the second most popular
“The first step should be small,” says Peleteiro. “For compa- provider, with around 23 percent market share.
nies starting their cloud journey, one provider makes sense. But • Google Cloud is in third place, with around
then, it’s important to mitigate some risk by adopting a multi- 10 percent of the market.
cloud approach — using different providers to avoid becoming
dependent on one.” Forecasters expect multicloud strategies to
increase in popularity in 2024, enhancing companies’ flexibility.

Leading the industry

Cloud computing is an integral part of our lives, but also feels
abstract to most people. If you stream a film or series on Netflix,
for example, you’re benefiting from AWS, which delivers videos ROI (return on forecaster formerly
investment) , Prognostiker(in) , früher, zuvor
over the internet. Many employees rely on file-sharing software, , Kapitalrendite
enhance sth. advocate
such as SharePoint, and communicate with their colleagues via
viable [(vaIEb&l] , etw. verbessern, [(ÄdvEkEt]
Teams — both of which are cloud-based applications. Who are , rentabel steigern , Verfechter(in)
the movers and shakers in this industry? Here are the most in- uptime application editor
fluencial heads in the cloud. , Betriebszeit, Verfüg- , Anwendung , Herausgeber(in)
barkeit
movers and shakers seminal [(semIn&l]
Dr. Werner Vogels, CTO at Amazon vendor , Macher(innen) , bahnbrechend
, Verkäufer(in)
Vogels has been at Amazon from the early days, CTO (chief technology random
joining in 2004. Often called the “Godfather of migrate sth. officer) , zufällig, beliebig
[(maIgreIt*] , Leiter(in) Techno-
the Cloud,” he was one of the people who have , etw. migrieren, logie
make waves
, Aufsehen erregen
made Amazon one of the biggest e-commerce übertragen
godfather , Pate
platforms in the world. Originally, AWS was a solution to the mitigate sth.
refute sth. [ri(fju:t]
internal problem of growing Amazon’s IT infrastructure. Back [(mItEgeIt*]
, etw. anfechten;
, etw. mindern
in 2006, Vogels refuted that Amazon was a successful online hier: widersprechen
* This symbol marks
bookstore. Instead, he said: “First and foremost, Amazon is a adopt sth.
first and foremost standard US
, etw. übernehmen
technology company.” A man with a vision. , vor allem pronunciation.

28 Business Spotlight 3/2024 TRENDS

 Charity Majors and Liz
Fong-Jones, CTO and field
CTO at Honeycomb.io
Majors and Fong-Jones
believe scalability is a big
advantage of the cloud: in-
creasing or decreasing re-
sources to meet changing
demand. They are also activ-
ists for diversity. Majors co-
founded the software company Honeycomb
in 2016, and Fong-Jones joined in 2019, im-
pressed by the number of women in leader-
ship roles there.

Ryan Kroonenburg, cofounder of A Cloud

Guru
Kroonenburg was turned down for a job
at AWS, after three months of intensive
interviews. He could have attended the of-
ficial AWS training course to improve his
chances of getting a job, but the fees were
expensive, so instead, he set about creating
an alternative learning platform. Within a
year, he launched A Cloud Guru, which has
since provided inexpensive cloud comput-
ing training to more than two million people
around the world. After six years, Kroonen-
burg sold the company for a cool $2 billion.

Heather Adkins, found-

ing member of the Google
Security Team
A cybersecurity expert, Ad-
Illustration: Georg Lechner; Fotos Adrie Mouthaan/De Beeldunie/laif; AILEEN SON/NYT/Redux/laif; privat

kins has been at Google for

two decades. She advocates for strong, reli-
able systems and has coauthored books with
Betsy Beyer to encourage scalable, secure
systems in organizations.

scalability turn sb. down

[)skeI&lE(bIlEti] , jmdn. ablehnen
, Skalierbarkeit
fee , Gebühr

TRENDS 3/2024 Business Spotlight 29