We are usher in the second decade of this century. As an IT practitioner and observer, it is always difficult and dangerous to predict the future, because every prediction you make may be completely overturned by the development of technology. But we need bold imagination to promote the exchange and development of technology. In view of this, I will come to the forefront and predict 8 potential trends and development trends that will appear in the enterprise technology field in 2020 for your reference.
[1] Dawn of Hybrid Application
Hybrid applications are applications that integrate various micro service architectures to a certain extent to create the best applications and differentiated services to help enterprises stand out from the competition. Under this architecture, you can use the data services of one cloud service provider while using the machine learning and data analysis services of another cloud service provider; or use the value-added services based on your enterprise data created by another partner . Enterprise innovation will not be limited to the services of a cloud service provider.
A neutral platform will help companies integrate all heterogeneous services and conduct operations in the way that they need. In 2019, I have communicated with many IT leaders and CIOs on how to use the hybrid cloud, and everyone hopes to have enough flexibility to create the best cloud-native services and closely integrate with open source technology.
[二] Edge solution active stage
Companies are eagerly seeking technology partners that can help solve edge problems and accelerate investment in edge computing. In the future, comprehensive edge solutions that can enter the market will have:
- Reduce or control the cost of edge nodes;
- Integrate the infrastructure of edge nodes to create a consistent edge computing architecture;
- Deliver new applications to the edge of the enterprise in software, and increase business speed and agility with consistent management.
For example, a general-purpose hardware device can provide software-defined wide area network (SDWAN) and can also run various applications independently, which will reduce costs and improve network performance.
[Three] dedicated hardware becomes a shared pool
When new-generation applications require specialised hardware such as FPGAs or GPUs, companies often must purchase dedicated servers and equipment for those applications. In 2020, we are expected to witness that these dedicated hardware resources form a unified resource pool by remote connection.
In the future, you can use solutions such as hyper-converged infrastructure and Bitfusion to connect applications to remote GPU or FPGA resource pools through the network to achieve modularisation of IT infrastructure. There is also no need to maintain hundreds of different proprietary servers to meet application needs. In the future, applications will be able to remotely connect to a variety of specialised hardware at any time, any place, according to the needs of the application.
[Four] the first step towards endogenous security
The new generation of malware is extremely complex and evolves. In order to defend against these malwares and face highly dynamic security threats, companies must adopt dynamic and better security policies. The IT infrastructure should have endogenous security. However, the current actual situation is that the enterprise’s security system and processes are too complex to change immediately. Network and security professionals have always and should avoid risks and abhor changes.
Enterprises should start with a single application or new project and gradually evolve to an endogenous security model. Currently, many of our network and security policies and firewall rules are only relevant to an application. This means that we can create these dynamic rules and policies when the application is constructed, and delete these rules when the application goes offline to achieve endogenous security and automation of the application.
The way we protect applications and data will continue to evolve, but it is difficult to find IT professionals with comprehensive skills to help companies achieve a comprehensive transformation of endogenous security. The best evolution is to start small. For example, choose a new Kubernetes project and use modern software-defined networking and security solutions for development. Your team can systematically build knowledge and gradually roll out new methodologies to the entire enterprise.
[Five] machine learning into 99% of enterprises
At present, machine learning (ML) has extremely high requirements for data science and precision, which is a bit out of reach for most enterprises, like small enterprises without their own team of data scientists. But soon, there will be more and more turnkey machine learning services for cloud service providers and open source communities, and the threshold will be greatly reduced. Enterprises do not need high professional knowledge to adopt machine learning models. Vendors that can help 99% of companies without data science expertise successfully use machine learning will dominate the future.
[Six] Cloud services are further decentralised
Data cannot be migrated to the public cloud in some cases, so why not migrate cloud services to where the data is located? Cloud services can already begin to run independently of cloud data centers, with the Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) running locally as an example. In 2020, I expect to see more similar scenarios. The physical location where cloud services run will ultimately depend on the requirements of the business.
[Seven] New students of shared service platform
In many industries, business partners are selected based on the hardware and software resources they provide. For example, a retail business partner might want to provide stores with desktop computers with their software solutions, and then require the IT team to connect to these computers through a firewall to provide services. The problem with this business model is that only partners with the financial strength to deploy the solution have the opportunity to compete. In the future, I hope to see the emergence of innovative service providers who can integrate the services of different business partners, achieve multi-tenant isolation through virtualisation software, and use a cloud-based one-stop platform.
It’s extremely important that the multi-tenant shared service platform at the edge can make innovation more pervasive. Enterprises will be able to become potential business partners with any ambitious company, regardless of whether they have the capital strength to implement the solution. Such a platform not only helps companies find new partners, but also generates revenue by renting edge computing capabilities and data access rights, which will further affect the success of enterprises in the retail and manufacturing industries.
[Eight] The dangers of a fragmented IT ecosystem
The development of IT technology in the past few decades has been a process of globalisation and technology unification. X86, virtualisation, the advent of the cloud, and the development of mobile technology are the fruit of global collaboration. With the increasing importance of IT for social development and the emergence of new innovative technologies such as 5G, cloud, and blockchain, the future development of the IT ecosystem will inevitably be restricted and affected by political and other factors.
For example, the current Sino-US trade issue has affected the development of IT technology on both sides, and many technology companies are considering adopting different development strategies in China and the United States. If this difference continues to develop, it will inevitably fragment the unified IT ecosystem. How to avoid such splits and innovations that affect the future is the responsibility of each of us. For further information you can visit here : orbitaltecltd(dot)com