Budget dollars or not, Gartner says there are some technology trends that IT organizations cannot afford to ignore.
Economic experts warn of a double-dip recession, but IT industry watchers say technology trends won’t slow down in the next two years, forcing high-tech leaders to take notice.
Check out the Gartner Webinar: Technology Trends You Can’t Afford to Ignore
Gartner Managing Vice President Raymond Paquet recently hosted a Webinar to detail the 10 key trends the research firm was tracking in the coming months. Not surprisingly two of the trends are virtualization and cloud computing, and a third involves social software. This blog will explore those three areas because frankly one can’t go online without running into multiple instances and references to the technologies.
Virtualization could be an obvious pick, considering its increase in popularity over the past several years, specifically x86 server virtualization. Yet Paquet pointed out that network, storage and desktop virtualization demand attention as well. The fact that server virtualization allows IT departments to consolidate resources and eliminate power and cooling costs provides an obvious ROI, according to Paquet, who also pointed out that client virtualization needs to be approached a bit differently.
“We cannot consolidate desktops. PCs by definition have a one-to-one ratio,” Paquet explained. “The return on investment model is fundamentally different even though the technology is fundamentally the same and therefore will not have nearly as high the potential ROI.”
But that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t compelling. Paquet listed several use-case scenarios, such as using the technology to support different operating system versions on a single device, in which the technology would provide benefits to IT.
“When we look at the mobile side of virtualization, virtualization is an opportunity” on client devices, he said. Using virtualization with mobile devices could help corporate IT departments create “portable personalities or bubbles” by having the hypervisor itself on the device. IT can create multiple personalities, those based on “corporate-based apps and personal-based applications,” Paquet explained.
Though Gartner listed cloud computing last on its list of 10 key trends, it makes sense to extend a discussion around virtualization into one on cloud computing. Gartner declared that the critical timeframe for cloud computing would be between 2012 and 2014, but the trend is being hyped now. Paquet offered tips to help reduce the noise and increase the chances of IT departments benefitting from cloud now.
To start, IT organizations could begin to “evaluate commodity services you provide and what can move to the cloud.” They could also consider a cloud delivery model for internal use, which likely would incorporate the use of a virtual server environment. And Gartner recommends IT leaders “categorize applications/services based on SLAs and risk before proceeding.” The challenges with cloud will not come in efforts to dynamically ramp up capacity to meet business demand, he explained, but rather the problem will arise when the capacity or resources are no longer needed and must be constricted back to normal levels.
“Cloud computing is delivering a service that has to scale to meet potential demand and it has to be elastic, meaning it is able to expand quickly or constrict quickly as well,” Paquet said. “The constriction side is much harder to figure out. We need to recognize that this is an immature technology on the public-side. The majority of investment is in private cloud.”
The third technology area that struck me as critical to consider today is social software. Gartner pointed to facts such as Twitter being the fastest growing social network in 2008, increasing by 1,382%. Paquet also clarified the misconception that social networks are the playground for students by quoting the statistic that 62% of new users are between the ages of 39 and 51, meaning most likely working adults. That makes social software compelling for organizations on two levels: external and internal.
Why social media isn’t a waste of IT’s time
There is an opportunity for corporate branding for most companies that could use sites such as Facebook to connect directly to their end-users, according to Paquet. “One of the important things to remember about social media is that they are mechanisms, it’s a publish and subscribe mechanism,” meaning those who participate are doing so because they want to, Paquet explained.
And for IT organizations, the internal potential is greater. Using social media, IT leaders could get feedback on their projects, efforts and results from the end-user community in near real-time. They could also use the tools to educate and communicate with end users. The possibilities are plenty, Paquet suggests.
“IT can take advantage of this with blogs and wikis for end users to participate with IT and communicate with IT, to be able to rank and rate IT projects and to be able to get the end users to understand what we are delivering and to comment and vote,” Paquet said. “IT can get the users involved in IT and give them a stake in the game and use the end users’ brain power to gauge IT requirements.”
Future blogs will explore several other technology areas that Gartner earmarked as being difficult to ignore, but for now, here is Gartner’s full list of technology trends to watch – carefully:
- Virtualization
- Data Deluge
- Energy and Green IT
- Complex Resource Tracking
- Consumerization and Social Software
- Unified Communications
- Mobile and Wireless
- System Density
- Mashups and Portals
- Cloud Computing
What technology trends do you have your eye on? In what areas do you plan to invest? Please leave a comment here or let me know directly at Denise.Dubie@ca.com.
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