Video Transcript: Where’s my data? Implications of cloud computing for you!
Thank you for the intro. So transitioning from from Instagram to cloud computing, so we all use phones like this, right, not only for Instagram, but yeah, you know also for uploading photos and everything ready, and we read headlines like the Pentagon or Deutsche Bank is investing millions or even billions of US dollars into cloud computing. And have you ever asked yourself what this really means from a technical level, but also on a society level, or for you. So Cloud computing is one of the biggest technological shifts in the last 100 years. Yet for many people, it's still unclear what the implications really are. So as just mentioned, I'm in the in the business of cloud transformation. And since I'm so entrenched in this cloud transformation market, which I really love, because it's so growing, so dynamic, I know a lot about the opportunities that lie in this huge transformation space, cloud transformation space, but also the challenges. So today in this talk, I really want to highlight for you those kinds of opportunities, but also the challenges that lie ahead. And I bought brought with me three thesis I want to share with you today and take them home. And yeah, but first, let's get all of us up to speed. What cloud computing really is. So tradition, traditionally, organizations like banks or governments that would run their own data centers, and they kind of looked like this. So large buildings, highly secure buildings, lots of servers, sucking energy and producing heat, and through cloud computing, this has radically changed, right? So cloud computing, everything is totally different, right? Super easy, fluffy and simple. Yeah, everything has changed. Well, actually, the opposite is true on a technological the infrastructure hardware level still looks like this. So servers in large, highly secure rooms, sucking energy, producing heat, and if you want to have a more cloudy view on what cloud computing looks like, looks like this. This is a this is a data center being built close to the sea, because, as I mentioned, servers are sucking energy, producing heat need to be cooled. That's how this works, typically in built in areas where it's where there's a lot of water and when we can cool things easily. So if you ask me, Hey, dude, where's my data I tell you, it's there in one of those data centers, of which hundreds and 1000s exist all over the world. So the question now is to cloud computing. What has actually changed now? So for one, the ownership of those data centers has changed. So previously, they were owned by governments, large organizations and the like, but now they are owned by the cloud providers, by hyperscalers such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft. So companies and organizations, they don't need to invest in the hardware and run those kinds of data centers, they can just procure those kinds of services on demand and pay only for what they use. So that's a that's a big difference. Another big difference lies in the ability to virtually infinitely scale computing demand. So let's say you're a retail organization entering shopping craziness in the Christmas time or Black Friday, the demand for your cloud or to your computing services really spikes. And with cloud computing as an organization, you can just procure those services on demand
when you need them, and pay only for what you need. So that's that's a very big change for organization. They don't have to buy and run those huge data centers and invest millions up front. Another thing that has really changed is efficiency. So since the cloud providers are able to focus on only one and one only business that is providing cloud computing services running data centers, they can optimize them in terms of security, for example, or in terms of energy efficiency. And that's actually quite a big deal, because about 1% of the energy that is consumed on the planet is through data centers. So the cloud provides actually now, which is the. Cool thing, I think, trying to optimize the usage of power in those data centers. But still, this does not explain the momentum that cloud computing currently has. And the key reason for organizations to move into Cloud computing is actually something completely different. It's the agility that organizations are gaining through using cloud technology, because they can reuse industry specific cloud computing services and really enter new markets really quickly. I've got two examples for you. One is, most of you probably know most of you have from from the region. Know the bank N26 didn't exist 10 years ago, but through cloud computing technology, they were able to enter the online banking market extremely quickly, in just a few years, and take a significant market share impossible 15 or 20 years ago, before cloud computing and another example from myself, about 20 Years ago, I built my first business that was a online shop for climbing equipment, and I built the back end and the front end the database on myself. That took several months with my friend. It was pretty cumbersome, and now you can just use SaaS services such as Shopify, and you can just build an online shop within a few hours done. So basically, what's happening here is that through cloud computing and the concept of abstraction, so abstracting away from the underlying technical details, we are able to innovate much faster. And abstraction is one of the key principles of IT. And for me, cloud computing is the ultimate example of abstraction. And I want to dive a little bit deeper into the history of abstraction, because I think it's, it's, it's quite, quite a great concept, and it's very important in cloud computing. So back in the day when we as computer scientists wanted to program computers, we used to punch holes Well, a generation before mine, but people programmers would punch holes into punch cards, and those would be basically the programs, and they would be fed into the hardware systems. They would read those punch cards and interpret them in machine language. And that was extremely cumbersome, because one needed to program in the language that the computer understands. So machine language basically almost zeros and ones, and then computer science scientists abstracted away from that and invented higher level compute programming languages. You probably have heard of, Java, C Plus Plus and Python, abstracting away from the technical details and enabling programmers to program in a more natural language, express themselves towards the computer in a more natural language, express
extracting away. And then we created software components, software platforms that we could plug, plug together for specific use cases and purposes in order to reuse functionality, to come up with new products, and cloud computing really brings that to the next level. We can on demand use cloud computing services on all different levels of abstraction, from very technical to very high level, industry specific services on demand when we need them. So the key takeaway is that abstraction in IT leads to much faster innovation, because you can abstract away from the nitty gritty technical details in order to focus on the actual business problem. And that really makes cloud computing a truly disruptive technology that will affect all industries, billions of people, including you and me. And that basically brings me to my first thesis. Companies will need to adopt cloud computing, or they will be coming obsolete much, much faster than they can ever imagine. And this applies to all industries, including healthcare and government. And the reason is that businesses with or companies with even a small budget can use cloud computing technologies for specific industries and enter new markets extremely quickly with a small budget. And now imagine what large organization can do with a big budget. They can quickly move into new markets, create new services, new products, and basically disrupt and overrun complete markets in a very short period of time. But on the positive side, it also applies to all of us. We can also with cloud computing much faster, get our dreams, our ideas, bring them to reality through cloud computing. So in a way, cloud computing is also a democratizing technology, and I would urge you to. Maybe think about, for example, your employer is your employer transforming fast enough, moving along with with technology fast enough. For example, cloud computing doesn't have to be cloud computing. And you should also think about, I think, where you, if you invest in companies and stocks on something like that, where you invest in light of this knowledge about cloud computing and where you spend your own time in terms of what kind of technologies you get good at, let's move on to the next thesis. So what do all of those companies have in common? So they basically all are trading so called commodities, such as oil, gas, electricity and the like. So I listed here nine out of the 50 largest companies in the world, and nine of them are trading commodities and have become extremely large. And as you notice, none of the cloud providers is on there. This has to do with my my thesis. So within although to note, the cloud provides are already in the top 50, they're just not in this list. So my thesis is, within a short period of time, cloud computing will be traded just like a resource such as oil and gas and the like, and they will further distribute how data is stored all over the planet and where it will be processed. And on the positive side, this will be create a marketplace that is potentially more fair, because smaller players might be enter, might be able to enter this market. But on the other hand, I also think that the large players in this field will be able to dominate because they can already make use of their economies of scale. So we really have to, I think,
closely watch those kinds of market dynamics in the concept in the context of cloud computing, because computing in general will become much more important in the future. I mean just by naming, you know, emerging technology, technologies such as autonomous driving or machine learning will which in the future, will need much more computing power. And this brings me to my last and final thesis. So within a decade, almost all data will be stored with just a handful of public cloud providers. The incentives of using cloud technologies are just too good in terms of ease of use, time to market, simplicity and sometimes also costs. And don't get me wrong, I think, in a way, this is a very good thing, because the cloud providers are able to much better keep our data safe and secure, because they have the skills, they have the budget, they have the people in order to focus on this topic, much better than traditional organizations would be able to do. So, yeah, I still think that the problem here lies in, you know, who owns the data. So it's not hard to imagine a world in which the organizations who own most of the data will be able to dominate. So I think we really need to also be careful and watchful and not start to get lazy when it comes to the privacy of our data, and need to hold organizations accountable for adhering to privacy and security standards. So summing up, cloud computing is one of the biggest technology shifts in the last 100 years. There will be absolutely massive disruptions in local and global economies in the next years through cloud computing and specifically affecting organizations that are not transforming fast enough. Almost all data in the future will be stored with just a handful of public cloud providers. So will cloud computing be the democratizing technology of the future, or will it lead to more monopolies? And I think we can still influence that, for example, by using open source technologies or by applying technologies that can freely move from cloud provider to cloud provider to avoid being stuck with a specific vendor. And we really need to make sure that providers adhere and advance privacy and security standards also in the future, and I recommend to you to maybe dig deeper into like more hidden technologies such as cloud computing, and draw your own conclusions in terms of, for example, which kind of employers you choose, where you invest your money, or which of your own ideas you. Realize, because through cloud computing, you can bring new ideas to life on a very small budget, much faster than traditionally, at a global scale, and all through the power of the concept of abstraction. So we have a lot of massive, I would say technology and societal challenges ahead, but also amazing opportunities through cloud computing. Thank you very much.