Infrastructure has changed significantly over the past few decades, with much of this being driven by technology. This shows no signs of slowing down, as various new innovations have meant that the industry is changing increasingly rapidly.
There have been several ways that this has been the case in recent years, with a few trends looking to continue into 2020. While many may come and go, there are a few of them that aim to have an increasing impact on infrastructure and operations in the coming years.
Hybrid IT Impacting Disaster Recovery
Hybrid IT is an area that’s become increasingly more prominent in the past few years. This SAAS, PAAS, data centers, edge computing, and much more. However, there’s still been a large number of firms using overly-simplistic disaster recovery plans.
These typically don’t deliver as much recovery success as many professionals may have wanted. As some reports suggest, the root cause of most cloud-based availability problems is a failure to use redundancy protocols fully.
In turn, this has led to a confidence hit for them. However, this is bouncing back, with many firms now starting to take full advantage of various cloud-based protocols.
Rethinking Automation Strategy
Automation has been a significant part of the infrastructure for a significant amount of time. However, this has meant that these kinds of protocols and processes have become quite complex. This could mean that many firms will have to rethink their automation strategy.
The trend seems to be leaning more toward a team-based approach with an automation architect taking the lead. Much of this is because the increasing complexity of many tools will mandate more specialized skills and knowledge.
Scaling DevOps
IT’s role in the infrastructure world has continued to grow. As a result, it’s become somewhat similar to a product manager role to many DevOps teams. However, this hasn’t been without its negative consequences.
Perhaps the most notable of these is that many companies may not have positions themselves to properly scale their DevOps. While this might not be a prominent issue right now, it could lead to significant consequences in the future. As such, many firms will need to start adjusting before this happens.
Infrastructure & Data Are Everywhere
In 2019, approximately 10% of enterprise-generated data is created outside of the cloud or a data center. By 2022, however, this looks to skyrocket to 50%. This could mean that infrastructure and its related data are almost everywhere.
However, many in the infrastructure world may still need to adjust to this. For example, firms will need to think of how IT will manage this data-everywhere scenario. While there are a variety of ways to do so, firms will still have to invest heavily in the tools needed to do so.
The Impact Of IoT
The internet of things (IoT) is having quite an overwhelming impact in a variety of industries and areas, including infrastructure. However, the problem here isn’t the technology itself. Instead, who manages these devices could be what causes an issue.
This is because there’s a variety of operational and security risks that will need to be considered. As a result, firms will have to create IoT best practices and shape their overall IoT strategies long-term.
Distributed Cloud
Placing cloud services on-premises but still having a vendor manage the cloud has been increasing significantly in recent years. This is a trend that looks to keep going, as there are a variety of newer and improved options to choose from.
However, this is still a relatively new market, which means that customers should have to think twice about it. The main reason for this is ensuring that boundaries are in place, as well as agreeing on who is responsible for what, such as software updates, and more.
A More Immersive Experience
Humans have adapted to use technology in a variety of ways. For the past few years, technology has also started to learn from and adapt to humans. Because of this, many customers not expect that perfection will be the new norm.
As such, infrastructure vendors will need to make sure that there aren’t any glitches in any of the technology and systems that they use and implement.
Increased Democratization
Application development was traditionally an area that required a large amount of specialization. However, this has become less true over the past few years. This is because of the prominence of no-code and low-code packages, which has helped to advanced infrastructure application development.
While this may be a quicker way to market, firms should also know that this could be slightly riskier. This is mainly driven by the lack of expertise that would have been involved in an app’s creation.
Enhanced Networking
There’s quite a large variety of trends affecting infrastructure networking, such as secure-access service edge, mesh, network-on-demand service, and much more. However, these all seem to be pulling the niche in many different directions. As such, networking looks to improve, although by how looks to be uncertain.
Hybrid IT Management
There’s a variety of IT solutions for infrastructure companies to take advantage of. However, the choices haven’t been as clear cut as they may have traditionally been. This is because they’ve become increasingly blended together, though there are still several options to choose from.
This could make the choice of infrastructure management somewhat more confusing for many people. However, an increasing number of firms are choosing more hybrid options instead of their traditional management solutions. This could provide various benefits in the long-term, such as smoother operations.
Knowledge can often mean the difference between success and failure in many industries, with infrastructure being no different. Each of the above trends looks to have an increasing impact across the industry for quite a significant amount of time.
This should mean that infrastructure professionals will not only have to be aware of them but take steps to capitalize on them. While this may take a certain amount of up-front investment, this could reap dividends in the long-term.
Though each trend affecting infrastructure will impact it in different ways, they’ll still need a variety of steps to fully utilize.
Infrastructure has changed significantly over the past few decades, with much of this being driven by technology. This shows no signs of slowing down, as various new innovations have meant that the industry is changing increasingly rapidly.
There have been several ways that this has been the case in recent years, with a few trends looking to continue into 2020. While many may come and go, there are a few of them that aim to have an increasing impact on infrastructure and operations in the coming years.
Hybrid IT Impacting Disaster Recovery
Hybrid IT is an area that’s become increasingly more prominent in the past few years. This SAAS, PAAS, data centers, edge computing, and much more. However, there’s still been a large number of firms using overly-simplistic disaster recovery plans.
These typically don’t deliver as much recovery success as many professionals may have wanted. As some reports suggest, the root cause of most cloud-based availability problems is a failure to use redundancy protocols fully.
In turn, this has led to a confidence hit for them. However, this is bouncing back, with many firms now starting to take full advantage of various cloud-based protocols.
Rethinking Automation Strategy
Automation has been a significant part of the infrastructure for a significant amount of time. However, this has meant that these kinds of protocols and processes have become quite complex. This could mean that many firms will have to rethink their automation strategy.
The trend seems to be leaning more toward a team-based approach with an automation architect taking the lead. Much of this is because the increasing complexity of many tools will mandate more specialized skills and knowledge.
Scaling DevOps
IT’s role in the infrastructure world has continued to grow. As a result, it’s become somewhat similar to a product manager role to many DevOps teams. However, this hasn’t been without its negative consequences.
Perhaps the most notable of these is that many companies may not have positions themselves to properly scale their DevOps. While this might not be a prominent issue right now, it could lead to significant consequences in the future. As such, many firms will need to start adjusting before this happens.
Infrastructure & Data Are Everywhere
In 2019, approximately 10% of enterprise-generated data is created outside of the cloud or a data center. By 2022, however, this looks to skyrocket to 50%. This could mean that infrastructure and its related data are almost everywhere.
However, many in the infrastructure world may still need to adjust to this. For example, firms will need to think of how IT will manage this data-everywhere scenario. While there are a variety of ways to do so, firms will still have to invest heavily in the tools needed to do so.
The Impact Of IoT
The internet of things (IoT) is having quite an overwhelming impact in a variety of industries and areas, including infrastructure. However, the problem here isn’t the technology itself. Instead, who manages these devices could be what causes an issue.
This is because there’s a variety of operational and security risks that will need to be considered. As a result, firms will have to create IoT best practices and shape their overall IoT strategies long-term.
Distributed Cloud
Placing cloud services on-premises but still having a vendor manage the cloud has been increasing significantly in recent years. This is a trend that looks to keep going, as there are a variety of newer and improved options to choose from.
However, this is still a relatively new market, which means that customers should have to think twice about it. The main reason for this is ensuring that boundaries are in place, as well as agreeing on who is responsible for what, such as software updates, and more.
A More Immersive Experience
Humans have adapted to use technology in a variety of ways. For the past few years, technology has also started to learn from and adapt to humans. Because of this, many customers not expect that perfection will be the new norm.
As such, infrastructure vendors will need to make sure that there aren’t any glitches in any of the technology and systems that they use and implement.
Increased Democratization
Application development was traditionally an area that required a large amount of specialization. However, this has become less true over the past few years. This is because of the prominence of no-code and low-code packages, which has helped to advanced infrastructure application development.
While this may be a quicker way to market, firms should also know that this could be slightly riskier. This is mainly driven by the lack of expertise that would have been involved in an app’s creation.
Enhanced Networking
There’s quite a large variety of trends affecting infrastructure networking, such as secure-access service edge, mesh, network-on-demand service, and much more. However, these all seem to be pulling the niche in many different directions. As such, networking looks to improve, although by how looks to be uncertain.
Hybrid IT Management
There’s a variety of IT solutions for infrastructure companies to take advantage of. However, the choices haven’t been as clear cut as they may have traditionally been. This is because they’ve become increasingly blended together, though there are still several options to choose from.
This could make the choice of infrastructure management somewhat more confusing for many people. However, an increasing number of firms are choosing more hybrid options instead of their traditional management solutions. This could provide various benefits in the long-term, such as smoother operations.
Knowledge can often mean the difference between success and failure in many industries, with infrastructure being no different. Each of the above trends looks to have an increasing impact across the industry for quite a significant amount of time.
This should mean that infrastructure professionals will not only have to be aware of them but take steps to capitalize on them. While this may take a certain amount of up-front investment, this could reap dividends in the long-term.
Though each trend affecting infrastructure will impact it in different ways, they’ll still need a variety of steps to fully utilize.
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