Date post: | 15-Jan-2015 |
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Tens of thousands of IT executives gathered for the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 in Orlando, which took place October 6-10. For many attendants, a much anticipated highlight of the conference is Gartner’s sharing of IT trends. Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 comprises the least speculative and most realistic of the trends that are shared. This list focuses on technology trends that are likely to have huge influences on businesses over the next three years.
CIOs should factor Gartner’s top technologies and trends into their strategic planning processes. The trends on this list, which are summarized on the following pages, will meaningfully impact business and IT in several ways including but not limited to potential disruption to current IT practices and functions, the need for major dollar investment and the risks associated with being late to adapt and evolve.
Introduction
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By 2016, the average knowledge worker
will use three to five mobile devices, which
will include wearable electronic devices
such as smart glasses and shoes. Gartner
claims businesses will be in search of
various mobile device management (MDM)
approaches such as containerization models
that separate corporate applications and
data from personal information, creating
a divide that clarifies what is subject to
corporate security practices. Applying
security to the individual application instead
of a range of services in a “container” is
another strategy.
Gartner also predicts that over the next three
years, we will start to see more personal
networks to connect our multiple wearable
devices. Devices will connect through our
smartphones to the personal network.
Due to the increasing bring your own device
(BYOD) trend, the mobile workforce should
double or even triple in size .
CIOs should ensure that their IT department
establishes security policies to better control
adherence to confidentiality and privacy
obligations while considering flexibility and
convenience for employees. Investing in cloud-
delivered desktops may be beneficial. Such
desktops allow employees to work on any device
from any location with the same access, security
and productivity they experience at the office.
Mobile DeviceDiversity & Management
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“apps will continue to grow while applications will begin to shrink. Apps are smaller, and more targeted, while a larger application is more comprehensive.” - Gartner
Mobile Apps
There is an increasing demand for organizations to utilize cross-platform applications. As a result, application creators are in need of new development skills, and CIOs have to tackle the question of whether to develop native or HTML5-based applications. As for now, there is no easy answer to the dilemma. 3
The Internet of EverythingThe Internet of Things (IoT) is coming at us faster
than we can handle. According to Gartner, most
enterprises and technology vendors have yet to explore
the possibilities of an expanded Internet and are not
operationally or organizationally ready.
Wearable smart devices will be a billion dollar industry
and they will create lots of work for IT. Many of these
emerging devices have unique IP addresses, and all
of them create data that will be useful for analytical
purposes. The responsibility of tracking and managing
all of this new information will land on IT.
Gartner posits that people, places, information and
things will all be connected soon. In fact, 25 billion
things will connect to the Internet by 2020. For
example, smart diapers will be able to indicate when
they need to be changed.
Big data analysis will also be crucial as everything becomes connected.
Gartner proposes four usage models that CIOs can apply to the IoT :
Manage
Operate
Monetize
Extend
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Hybrid cloud andIT-as-a-service broker
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Gartner states that enterprises should factor in the hybrid future when designing cloud services. Combining personal clouds with external private cloud services will be crucial.
Early hybrid cloud services of today have mostly been static compositions. For
example, the division between services run within an organization and those run
in a public cloud has usually been fixed.
Gartner predicts an emergence of various “deployment compositions” in the future
as cloud service vendors evolve and adapt. Deployment compositions allow for
services to unite whenever they are provisioned. “Event composition” is another
advanced solution, in which the balance of a hybrid cloud adjusts for a specific
event, such as disaster recovery.
Cloud/client architectureNew architecture models allow for people to be on multiple devices and services that come from the cloud. The cloud will be a home base for applications that span a range of client devices, according to Gartner.
We’ve already experienced this trend over the past few years, but there
is more change ahead. As mobile users demand more complicated
technologies, increasingly advanced server-side computing and storage
capacity will be a must.
CIOs should make sure they partner with a cloud provider that can keep
up with ever-evolving and increasingly complex needs.
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The era of personal cloudGartner anticipates that the personal cloud will transition from
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Although it’s hard to imagine, people will start to care less
about the type of device they are using as the personal cloud
will be of greater importance.
With the personal cloud, people will have their own
individualized set of cloud services that they will construct
themselves. CIOs should be aware that IT will need to stay on
top of security concerns while simultaneously respecting the new
power structure in which the user, with their employee-owned
hardware, is king.
Devices Services
Software-defined anything
As defined by Gartner, Software-defined anything (SDx) is “a collective term that encapsulates the growing market momentum for improved standards for infrastructure programmability and data center interoperability driven by automation inherent to cloud computing, DevOps and fast infrastructure provisioning.”
In general, the industry is designing more standardized
building blocks that allow for faster reconfiguration. SDx
is another way of saying that virtually everything will be
programmable.
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Web Scale ITGartner describes Web-scale IT as “a pattern of global-class computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting by rethinking positions across several dimensions.”
Smaller cloud providers are starting to adopt the strategies of larger
“Web-scale” companies, particularly in regards to designing for
failure, which means assuming a certain percentage of devices will
crash but that applications must continue to run in spite of the failures.
To keep up with service providers both big and small, enterprises will
also need to learn how to recreate the way IT is delivered.
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The rise of smart machinesThe smart machine era is on its way. David Cearley, Gartner Fellow, splits these new technologies into three categories:
Movers: autonomous vehicles
Doers: various robotic equipment
Sages: personal assistants, such as Siri and Google Now
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Will machines rise up over mankind and conquer
the world in 2014? Of course not. But new ideas
branching from the Internet of Things, network-scale
computing, natural language processing and other
algorithms have fed and ramped up the development
of smart machines.
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3-D Printing
Worldwide shipments of 3-D printers should increase by 75 percent in 2014, and shipments will then double in 2015, according to Gartner.
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75%
Cearley said the buzz that has surrounded this subject is valid and will help enterprises prepare. “The consumer market hype has made organizations aware of the fact 3-D printing is a real, viable and cost-effective means to reduce costs through improved designs, streamlined prototyping and short-run manufacturing.”
Conclusion
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Since Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2014 stay grounded in realistic hypotheses, many of the topics on the list may not be surprising – especially if you’ve been keeping up with your IT research. Nonetheless, the trends can seem daunting when explored all at once.
You don’t have to grapple with them on your own.
Peak 10 looks forward to helping its clients navigate technology innovations and changes in the years ahead. From reviewing the benefits of cloud-delivered desktops that help CIOs maintain control during the rise of the BYOD trend to helping companies adapt to the hybrid cloud, Peak 10 takes pride in being a collaborative thought partner to its customers.
Top10 Technology Trends Led by Gartner Fellow David Cearley
For more information go to peak10.com