2. Introduction
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.
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3. Mobile Device
Diversity & Management
By 2016, the average knowledge worker
networks to connect our multiple wearable
will use three to five mobile devices, which
devices. Devices will connect through our
will include wearable electronic devices
smartphones to the personal network.
such as smart glasses and shoes. Gartner
claims businesses will be in search of
Due to the increasing bring your own device
various mobile device management (MDM)
(BYOD) trend, the mobile workforce should
approaches such as containerization models
double or even triple in size .
that separate corporate applications and
data from personal information, creating
CIOs should ensure that their IT department
a divide that clarifies what is subject to
establishes security policies to better control
corporate security practices. Applying
adherence to confidentiality and privacy
security to the individual application instead
obligations while considering flexibility and
of a range of services in a “container” is
convenience for employees. Investing in cloud-
another strategy.
delivered desktops may be beneficial. Such
desktops allow employees to work on any device
Gartner also predicts that over the next three
from any location with the same access, security
years, we will start to see more personal
and productivity they experience at the office.
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4. Mobile Apps
“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
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 HTML5based applications. As for now, there is no easy answer to the dilemma.
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5. The Internet of Everything
The 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
Gartner proposes four usage models
that CIOs can apply to the IoT :
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
Manage
Monetize
Operate
Extend
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.
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6. Hybrid cloud and
IT-as-a-service broker
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.
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7. Cloud/client architecture
New 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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8. The era of personal cloud
Gartner anticipates that the personal
cloud will transition from
Devices
Services
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.
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9. 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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10. Web Scale IT
Gartner 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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11. The rise of smart machines
The 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
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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12. 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.
x2
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.”
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13. Conclusion
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.
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14. Top10 Technology Trends Led by Gartner Fellow David Cearley
For more information go to peak10.com