In 2015, enterprise IT teams went through one of the biggest transitions in a decade as enterprises go hybrid and implement software-defined networks. Industry watchers from Gartner to Harvard Business Review state that more than 70% of companies are now leveraging cloud computing and most have hybrid IT models. To meet the complexity associated with increased cloud usage and to gain control of the data centre, CIOs are responding by harnessing technologies that can differentiate their business, provide a better customer experience and ultimately help them gain a competitive edge, writes Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa at Riverbed Technology.
In order for enterprises to gain better visibility, optimisation and control while focusing on solving business performance challenges, Riverbed Technology has provided the following list of 2015 trends and predictions that will impact IT organisations in 2016.
Trends for 2015
- IT efficiencies in the data centre such as hyper-convergence, software-defined data centres, automation and orchestration were adopted by main stream enterprises. Resulting in cost efficiencies, greater span and control, and faster data centre operations.
- IT continued to grow in importance as CIOs found ways to transform agility requirements to fulfill business line demands.
- Business silos began converging into DevOps movements creating tighter alignment between IT and the line of business.
- IT complexity including security, agility and performance demands caused a tipping point in 2015, resulting in IT leveraging more automation solutions across the network.
Predictions for 2016
- CIOs seek more control: The dramatic increase in network complexity, virtualisation, and new, highly distributed application architectures, coupled with the reliance on applications for business, demands a radical new approach to how IT operations look at their network and application performance infrastructure. CIOs will look to leverage more technologies that focus on automation, intelligence and orchestration in a move to try to control the distributed network that they have been unable to control.
- Enterprises still use hybrid but increase cloud usage: More and more IT assets will be pushed into the cloud, and more users will work outside premises. We’ll see more companies operate exclusively in the cloud, but enterprises will continue to leverage the hybrid cloud model with overall cloud usage increasing across the network.
- CIOs focused on KPIs: CIOs will focus on KPIs to align IT to the needs of the business. For example, CIOs will need to know how their apps are being delivered 24-hours a day. They will need to know performance and user experience. Otherwise, CIOs will have a difficult time defending the IT organisation as more than a cost centre.
- Visibility ensures greater trust: As more and more organisations move to the cloud for day-to-day operations, visibility across the public, private and hybrid clouds will become critical. CIOs will leverage solutions that provide greater visibility into performance, security and end-user experience for applications. Greater visibility will lead to more trust in IT and alignment to business goals.
- RIP Router: The future of networking is not a router, but rather a software-defined approach to applications. IT teams will begin implementing complete solutions for visibility, optimisation and control in order to move to a software-defined enterprise with more agility to take full advantage of cloud, SaaS, hybrid and SD-WAN options.
