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The outbreak of novel coronavirus continues spreading all over the world, without any cure available to contain the virus. As the pandemic has forced businesses worldwide to shut down operations and send people to stay home, companies now are relying on remote working. The dependency over digital infrastructure to keep working during the lockdowns imposed due to the virus has led to the requirement of cloud computing services worldwide.

As companies allowed to work remotely or work from home, it is unlikely to imagine that work shift without the cloud. The demand of cloud services in this time is increasing at a rapid pace among both enterprise and consumer customers largely due to growing dependency on collaborative tools for group videoconferencing, eLearning, entertainment and gaming.

However, with this upsurged demand, many businesses are rushing to provide cloud computing. Alibaba, for instance, is reportedly doubling down on cloud computing with a US$28 billion three-year investment plan. The announcement comes at the time when the coronavirus pandemic fuels demand for internet infrastructure and technologies that enable computing from anywhere. The company is also planning to spend the money to build next-generation data centres and develop related technologies including semiconductors and servers.

In addition to this, Microsoft also reports a 775 percent spike in cloud services demand amid COVID-19. The enhanced demand has led Microsoft to prioritize COVID-19-related workloads, and place tighter caps on its free cloud service offerings for new users. Moreover, the company admits that its 99.99 percent uptime availability target has not been maintained at all times and places through the outbreak.

Cloud is Keeping People Connected amid the Pandemic

Cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud is allowing people during the lockdowns to continue their digital lives through applications like Zoom Video, Slack, and Netflix. The pandemic also demonstrates how cloud infrastructure has become essential in the modern world.

In a report from West Monroe Partners, when it comes to the usage of the cloud, the healthcare sector is leading the finance, along with the energy and utility sectors. As most healthcare institutions and government health service agencies become digitalized, they are bringing their data to the cloud to optimize services and improve patient outcomes.

Moreover, telemedicine also increasingly rely on the cloud as remote data accessibility and interactive online tools make it possible for doctors to provide services from a distance. In the same way, teleworking tools like Skype, ClickMeeting, Slack, among others also rely on the cloud for their continuous and steady operation.

Despite this, the high demand of cloud services has also led to new challenges for cloud service providers around latency requirements and data security. As concerns over phishing attacks are increasing since users are accessing networks on their personal devices outside of their organizational setups, data security and privacy have become major poblems for businesses.