2014 2015

Predictions in the world of IT for 2015

Everyone is chiming in with their two cents, so here are mine.

Software Defined Networking

SDN-MEME

2015 will be the year of software defined networking, which is exciting, but like the year of VDI (for the 5th???? time), will probably be forever coming, especially when you look at the mid market and below.

SDN is an area which I hope to work in next year, having a background in both Networking and Virtualisation. But looking at the limited offering around, and the lack of integration from 3rd parties as it stands, it will be a slow burner. The datacenter will never change over night, or over the course of three months, they are usually built around a 3 to 5 year strategic plan. So the foundations of SDN will be laid in concrete in 2015, reading the land for the building blocks created by the 3rd parties.

For me, I will be getting certified in these area’s, and creating POC’s for customers, where the product fits into their operations.

End User Computing

The year of VDI never really happened, and its never going to. Instead it morphed into EUC

The idea is to enhance the experience of the end user for the better.

This can be achieved by the implementation of VDI, however there are certain use cases where by giving them a new fat client with dedicated hardware is the correct path.

Therefore I believe that more and more companies are realising that VDI is not an answer to all of their problems, but one of many solutions they can turn to.

Looking at VMware’s recent acquisitions in the form of Cloud Volumes and Airwatch, we can see this at a vendor level, where they have bulked out their service offerings which integrate but do not depend on VDI.

VDI-Meme

In the industry, there will be more providers offering Desktop-as-a-Service next year, offering more choice and competition when it comes to pricing.

Storage

This last year I’ve worked a lot with Nimble storage, which is probably one of the most exciting startup’s in the last few years, alongside some other storage vendors. These guys are hitting the market with a product that are thought about from the ground up to work in todays environments. Where as some of the older vendors seem to take their existing product set, through a bit of memory at it, and some SSD’s, and market is as faster and better.

Which it is, but it doesn’t always hit the mark with the demands of today’s datacenter.

So next year, I expect more customer uptake of products from these new vendors on the block.

However the more exciting things are;

  • VMware vVols
  • Automation

vVols is something that has been on a radar for a long time, and vendors like Nimble are already hitting the ground running with products that support this.

And the integration of automation tools into these storage devices, which opens up new and exciting possibilities of moving data around between storage devices and tiers.

Online storage

This will be something traditional storage needs to compete against, offerings like Office 365 OneDrive, Dropbox, Box to name but a few, are aiming themselves at the small to medium businesses. Offering agility of services and ability to commoditise the cost per user., this will be attractive to the markets they aim at, as storage has always been a pinch point for 99% of businesses. By using an online service, you are removing those barriers and walls created through the use of hard quotas, and the administration behind the access of data.

There will be challenges behind the implementation of this, however I think Microsoft are best places in this market with the full Office 365 suite.

Automation

Companies have always wanted to do more with less, but these last few years they have probably gone further than ever before (Cliché).

Automation is the answer, usually to help you get the tasks done quicker because employee X has been made redundant or just doesn’t exist to do the work.

ftke3

With virtualisation and the platforms on offer, they are all moving on from the hypervisor war, and providing additional “extensions” to the platform through the likes of automation and monitoring, which essentially allows you to get more out of the hardware and software you have.

Security

This really could be in a blog post of its own, 2015 will be the year of Cyber Security Flaws and Attacks.

2014 wasn’t kind to many firms, we only need to mention OpenSSL, Sony, and iCloud to create an explosion of memories in which we shake our heads.

There is a lot of big companies out there who have been made to look foolish, losing customers details left right and centre, how long will this go on for? Well if you believe some of the offending groups who were the attackers, it will carry on until us the public distrust the “said” company and stop using their services.

Alternatively they will continue until the “said” company beefs up security.

Either way, there will be more incidents.

cybersecurity

Wearable Tech

Looking at the consumer market, the smartphone has taken over, whats next? Like 3D TV’s which were rammed down our throats when the Television market become stale and had nothing new to offer, the consumer “whats-in-your-pocket” market has become the same, we have a wide range of smartphone choice, yet usually only go for an Apple or a Samsung.

So wearable tech is now the next big thing we need, at the moment the best offerings come from that which aid fitness, however with the apple smart watch on its way, we’ll see the transformation of a smartphone from our pockets to the wrist.

Wearable-technology
Summary

So for me next year, I’ll be learning powershell and learning all I can about SDN, and hopefully implementing solutions around or using both.

I don’t think there will be any major game changers next year, but more of an evolution of what we currently have at our disposal. 2015 will be another exciting year, and intend to take advantage of it.

However my predictions are just from my own thoughts and have no factual accurate basis what so ever from any industry experts of people in the know. =D

Regards

Dean

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