Organizations nowadays are increasingly including infrastructure and operations (I&O) in new and more areas in the enterprise. Generally, the I&O involved the technology elements such as cloud, datacenters, and colocation, but I&O leaders today such as Power Consulting IT Support are taking it far beyond technology to support the business strategy.
“There is a dramatic evolution of I&O happening right now,” said Ross Winser, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, during Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference in Las Vegas. “It’s no longer about hardware or software — it’s about delivering services that accomplish business needs. The future of infrastructure is everywhere and anywhere, and will be business-driven by nature.”
Leading analyst firm Gartner has identified the impacts of 10 key technologies and trends to support digital infrastructure in 2021.
Top trends that will impact infrastructure and operations in 2021 and beyond
1. Serverless computing
Serverless computing is an evolution of cloud computing models from infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to function-as-a service (FaaS). It is an abstraction of server, infrastructure and the operating system in a way that users don’t need to manage anything, as the cloud provider does that for them.
As per Gartner, serverless computing has the potential to remove requirement for infrastructure provisioning and management. This trend is expected to become a norm by 2022, with 10% of IT organizations identifying its opportunities and limits.
2. Artificial intelligence (AI)
Gartner finds that the value of AI-derived business will total around $3.9 trillion by 2022. The analyst firm states that IT leaders will need to use AI for supporting the growing infrastructure.
This technology will allow organizations to accelerate the processes, and grow infrastructure without adding new staff. AI in infrastructure and operations is expected to trend between 2021 and 2023.
3. Network agility
The network is the foundation of everything that comes under IT, including cloud services, internet of things (IoT), and edge services. the focus of network teams has always been to increase availability.
However, Gartner says that the network teams will need to shift their focus to accelerating the performance of network operations. They will need to use modern technologies like AI for automation and orchestration.
“In 2020, network teams must collaborate heavily with other business units as new opportunities in 5G and edge computing arise,” mentioned Gartner.
4. Datacenters will shut down
According to Gartner, 90% of organizations will shut down their traditional datacenter by 2025. In fact, 10% of enterprises have already done so.
IT leaders will need to rethink where to host their workloads on the basis of business reasons rather than technology reasons.
“Organizations need to create an environment that houses more agile infrastructure both on-premises and in the cloud, the critical time frame for which is 2021 to 2025,” Winser said.
5. Edge computing
Computing which happens close or near to source of data generation, rather than depending on a centralized cloud for data processing, is called edge computing.
Also known as edge, the edge computing eliminates the time and distance required to send data to the cloud. It doesn’t mean that there is no need for cloud. It means that the cloud comes to the device. This enhances speed and performance for transporting the data, along with devices and applications on the edge.
Edge computing will grow the fastest between 2020 to 2023, to meet the demand for high-quality digital experiences.
6. Digital diversity management
Digital diversity management involves the management of a wide range of assets and technologies implemented in the modern digital enterprise. IT leaders need to identify, discover, and monitor all these assets and technologies to know their impact or support to the business.
Because of poor visibility and management of assets, enterprises sometimes can’t avoid exponential wastage. As per Gartner, digital diversity management will become a trend between 2020 to 2025.
7. New roles within I&O
The roles of I&O leaders will evolve to support cloud services, get skilled in aggregation, customization, integration and governance. It is because the organizations are looking for optimizing costs and simplifying complexity. This trend already took effect in 2020 and will be continuing this year as well.
8. SaaS
Focus of most of the enterprises is on delivery and support of IaaS and PaaS solutions. This focus will shift to SaaS between 2019 and 2021. I&O teams will need to gain insight into SaaS from a security and compliance view.
9. Management of talent becomes important
Enterprises organize the IT staff on the basis of technologies. However, they require technical expertise and collaboration from other teams to address certain challenges. IT leaders will need to get the best out of their teams and manage them effectively for a successful hybrid infrastructure.
10. Enabling global infrastructure
When the customers and suppliers of an organization span around the world, the I&O leaders will need to provide infrastructure globally. To do this, they will have to form right partnership strategies to create an ecosystem of capabilities and support.
Also read: 10 technologies that CXOs should incorporate in their roadmaps and strategies
This post was last updated on 2nd June, 2021
Nowadays, businesses lean more on the technology side to prosper and compete globally as things are going on at a fast pace. This is a really good read and I have learned other important keys about it. Thank you for sharing.