Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2025. Read them in this 17th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Joe
Kim, CEO, Sumo Logic
In 2024, we have
seen businesses navigate a growing tide of complexity. Whether it be growing
data volumes to power large language models (LLMs) or hybrid digital
environments, rapid digitization has made managing application performance and
security a daily struggle for practitioners and business leaders alike.
Logs-the fundamental records of digital activity-hold immense potential to
simplify this complexity, offering teams the ability to monitor, secure, and
optimize their environments with precision and at speed.
In 2025,
organizations will start overcoming these challenges by placing the atomic
level of logs at the center of observability, security and collaboration. These
three 2025 trends will underscore how logs empower teams to unlock insights,
enhance collaboration, and drive innovation.
1. The
workhorse for the next generation of Observability will be Logs:
As the digitization
of businesses hit an all-time high in 2024, we anticipated an increase in need
for Dev, Sec and Ops teams to collaborate much closer and work together
to help answer the hardest questions facing the business, technology and
security operations. This evolution has led to the rapid rise of AI-powered
Observability platforms and a broader understanding on the criticality that logs
play as the System of Record for technology.
In 2025, the insight
that resides in organizations’ structured and unstructured log data will be
unlocked through the usage of traditional AI/ML and Generative AI technologies.
This will provide unmatched levels of context and insights and ultimately deliver
on the promise of Observability for applications and digital services. Toward
the end of 2025, these similar capabilities will be repurposed to integrate
Observability with Business Analytics to open up new methods to inform key
business decisions in the form of “Customer Observability.”
2. DevSecOps
will evolve into an integrated model, where capabilities in observability and
security will be embedded across the development lifecycle:
DevSecOps has been
more of a vision than a reality as budgetary pressures and office politics
regarding tooling and technologies prevented teams from collaborating.
In 2025, technology advancements and the
unifying of ecosystems will relieve this pressure as DevSecOps evolves into an
integrated model where Observability and Security capabilities become shared
and embedded into the development lifecycle. Organizations will leverage
AI-powered platforms that not only automate steps like security checks, compliance
assessments and vulnerability scannings, but also pre-tagging context for
Observability purposes directly into log files as a critical component of a
well-functioning CI/CD pipeline. This approach will streamline processes and
ensure quality, performance and security remain a shared responsibility across
all teams.
3. There
will be some initial stumbles, but ultimately we will see a rise of Agentic AI:
As development
efforts using Generative AI to build better “mouse traps” occur
throughout the industry, we will see rapid evolution of the technology on our
way to achieve Agentic AI – AI that can operate more autonomously without much
human intervention.
In 2025, we will see
an increase in the number of autonomous agents that help in all areas of a
business – development, operations, security, marketing, sales, customer
success, etc. – and inevitably, these agents will eventually be consumable via
marketplaces. New platform capabilities will rise to allow multiple of these
autonomous agents to work, communicate or orchestrate with each other and with
people.
This year,
organizations will face a defining moment: embrace simplification or risk being
overwhelmed by complexity. By leveraging a single source of truth – logs –
businesses can transform challenges into opportunities.
The companies that
succeed will be those that recognize simplicity as the foundation of
resilience, agility, and growth. By focusing on actionable insights, seamless
collaboration, and DevSecOps, they’ll not only meet the demands of today but
stay competitive in an increasingly digital world.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joe Kim is the
President & CEO of Sumo Logic, with over two decades of operating executive
experience in the application, infrastructure, and security industries. He is
passionate about helping customers address complex challenges through the
delivery of powerful and efficient technologies and innovations.
Before joining
Sumo Logic, Joe was a senior operating partner for Francisco Partners
Consulting (FPC), assisting in deal thesis, assessing product-market-fit and
technology readiness, and helping portfolio companies create value for
customers and shareholders through advisory, board, and mentorship activities.
Prior to FPC, Joe served as the chief technology and product officer at Citrix,
where he was responsible for strategy, development, and delivery of the
company’s $3.2B portfolio of products. Joe has held other senior executive
roles at SolarWinds, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and General Electric. Joe
currently serves on the Board of Directors of SmartBear and Andela. Joe holds a
B.S. in Computer Science, Criminology and Law studies from Marquette University.
