Latin America. At the height of the Age of Experience, the IT Department must be able to adapt to changing business requirements and most importantly, take the initiative to become a strategic asset to the organization. Observing emerging trends and how they come to play within the IT space is vital to the success of any organization. We must prepare for next year, and for that it is important to take into account the great trends that this 2015 will shape the investment landscape of companies in information technology resources and infrastructure.
1. Information Security
The topic of information security has been on the priority list time and time again and today again at number one for the second year in a row in a study conducted by ESG. In the realm of information security, 2014 was a year of what seemed like ongoing security threats and incidents and data breaches that affected retailers, gaming networks, gaming communities, banks and governments. We're talking about threats ranging from full cybercrimes or someone simply connecting their device to a network without being authorized. Security and risk administration and management is listed today as the number one business initiative, the one that will generate more spending in 2015, something never seen before. Improving security and risk management is the most important argument for investing in IT over the next year. As the number one among six meta-trends, security will be the most important trend for companies over the course of 2015.
2. Data Center Modernization
As business requirements lead to simplicity and time valuation for IT, hyper-convergence will begin to take on a much larger role in data center modernization. Although this alters the status quo of the IT area, thanks to this disruptive trend organizations will promote the advance towards hyper-convergent infrastructures within the data center, replacing server and storage components.
As software-defined infrastructures take hold, operations and management will be fully redefined. Operations automation will eliminate configurations and reconfigurations at the hardware level, allowing managers to focus their efforts on new skills rather than frequent, repetitive tasks. In software-defined data centers and post-virtualization, virtual machines will lead the change. Format-centric hardware, a bottom-up approach, will become a thing of the past as you take over workload-centric control, a top-down approach.
Establishing a policy at the virtual machine level will allow the automation of the data center, revolutionizing the operations teams of control of the environment. In 2015, a convergence of technologies will enable both operational on-site recovery and disaster recovery from off-site. Virtualization and cloud have provided new approaches to backup and disaster recovery leading to faster recovery, reducing risk and lower costs.
3. Data analysis
According to IDC, the large data and analytics market will reach a value of $125 trillion in 2015. Data analysis tools will be the first front to offer integrated, complete security against threats, prediction, detection, prevention and deterrence programs (International Institute of Analysis, IIA). New technologies that provide continuous analysis of data and information will be approved.
Buying and selling data will be a great contribution to the organization's revenue. It is estimated that 70% of organizations currently purchase external data and according to IDC predictions, 100% of organizations will do so in 2019. Parallel to this, organizations will begin to monetize their data through value-added content. IIA predicts that 2015 will mark a transition point for organizations' investment in generating and monetizing new and unique data sources.
4. Cloud
Cloud computing, in all its forms (public, private and hybrid), is changing the way businesses consume, manage and quote IT, something that requires a new way of thinking. Cloud services promise a wide range of benefits of lower total costs and lower complexity. With adoption rates increasing year-over-year, cloud services such as Software-as-a-service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) are taking the reins of the industry. In 2015, 50% of the world's large enterprises will rely on external cloud computing services for at least one of their top 10 revenue generators and by 2016, all large global enterprises will use some form of public cloud service (Gartner). Gartner recommends that enterprises focus their current efforts on application and data integration and connect fixed internal and external applications into a hybrid solution.
5. Mobility
At the heart of all business transformations is mobility. Mobility enables the most convenient collaboration and communication across organizations. Mobile devices are essential for communication within the business and the demand for mobile experience has never been greater and this trend will continue to rise. Enterprise mobility is today an important factor for spending in large organizations, mobility initiatives can deliver tremendous value to organizations such as: lower costs, flexible work schedules and improved employee productivity. Today's high levels of connectivity and communication are changing the way information is accessed and changing the way employees complete their day-to-day work responsibilities. The development of new business applications will enable employees to a next-generation level of interactivity as well as innovative performance within the industry. Through mobility, employees will have the ability to drive the entire organization to a point of unprecedented growth, flexibility and efficiency.
There is no doubt that the technology industry is constantly changing and as industry trends evolve, business initiatives must evolve with them. Being the most important trend for companies in the course of 2015, information security should be considered as the most important of an organization's priorities. Similarly, data analytics, data center modernization, cloud computing, and mobility must be taken into consideration when determining business initiatives and when designing investment budgets in organizations as vital elements for their development.
Text written by Carlos Perea, VP of Sales for Latin America at Extreme Networks.
