Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Ravi Mayuram, CTO, Couchbase
Hindsight 20/20: Looking Back at How Couchbase's 2018 Predictions Fared (and what's ahead for 2019)
Couchbase made a series of technology
predictions for 2018, based on well established industry trends that we've been
seeing in our customer base. These trends are ongoing, as organizations adopt
innovative technology, and as the technology itself evolves and changes. With
this year wrapping up, here's how our 2018 predictions fared.
In 2018, we predicted the following:
- Digital Transformations will
accelerate, led by a fundamental rethink of data infrastructure.
- Multi-cloud takes off as the
future of cloud technology.
- Edge computing leaps to the
forefront.
- AI doesn't go mainstream, but
businesses lay AI groundwork.
- Secure by default takes precedence
over ease of use in devops.
- Containing the database sprawl
will be a mandate.
- Serverless architecture
proliferates within organizations.
First, we were right on target with Digital
Transformation, Multi-cloud, Security in Devops, and Containing Database
Sprawl. These were all key components for successful technology innovation and
deployments this past year. Organizations, both public and private, have had or
plan to address these issues if they hope to thrive in an exponentially growing
digital world. No longer in the category of "wait and see," 70 percent of organizations have
digital transformation projects in place to address these components. Some
examples of this include Amazon's announcement to move completely
away from their legacy Oracle databases, to secure, multi-cloud a consolidated
NoSQL and relational database platform; Atrium Health's data breach of 2.7M patients; and
multiple cloud service platforms offering multi-cloud support. We also heard
from many customers and partners at Couchbase Connect who are actively
addressing these areas, including Carnival Corporation, the Cincinnati Reds, PVH Europe, DirecTV, Verizon, Matrix Medical Network, Amadeus, Movere, BD Digital Health, Yapstone, and UPS.
There were a couple of areas where progress is
much faster, but the state of the technology is also evolving on a daily basis.
Edge Computing, AI, and Serverless Architecture continue to be compelling
technology trends, well beyond the "wait and see," but real world deployments
are still finding their footing and probably will be for the next several
years. A few examples in the press include the H20 and BlueData partnership, Paperspace, and HIT edge computing. Additional customer examples from Couchbase
Connect 2018 include Sky, Generali Document Management, Ryanair, and Nuance.
One prediction that we didn't discuss was
around Blockchain technology, mostly because it seemed to be more hype and buzz
than actual deployable technology, especially within the realm of high
throughput database applications. There was a lot of press coverage around
blockchain in 2018 and even a couple of initial forays into the marketplace.
Although some progress was made, it still feels like Blockchain is few years
away from becoming an evolved mainstream technology that can be applied outside
of a small application niche. Definitely still in the "wait and see" category.
What's
Next in 2019
As we look ahead to 2019, here are some new
predictions to take us into the new year. We're curious to see how these fare.
The
groundwork has been laid for AI/ML technologies, and now the real questions
will surface. Over the past year, companies have been
figuring out where and how to implement AI/ML technologies, and many are still
refining the "how." While that's true, the groundwork has been laid and the
mentalities have been shifted, and 2019 will be a big year for questions in
AI/ML - literally, in the sense of how organizations determine what questions
to use to train their AI/ML algorithms. There are also broader conversations
that have been sparked around ethics and biases, and 2019 will see the
conversation continue, with academia and business working together to develop a
trusted approach to developing AI/ML for the future.
Serverless
becomes less mysterious. Today, every CIO and CTO are
evaluating serverless technologies, but a big constraint preventing adoption is
the potential for vendor lock-in and unknown variables. In 2019, the mystery
around serverless will slowly lift - and in the process, bring it to broader adoption.
Today, serverless can lead to lock-in with certain cloud implementations, but
we're likely to see an emerging ecosystem of supporting technologies develop as
microservices lay the foundation for a new type of cloud operating system.
Multi-cloud
implementations suffer new issues from lack of interoperability across clouds. As providers continue to innovate before standardizing processes and
interoperability, problems will arise in multi-cloud environments because
providers have created interfaces with slightly different ways of working. For
example, Google and Amazon each have their own messaging systems, as does
Kafka, and applications developed do not simply move to another without
undergoing changes. In 2019, these issues will come to light - and users will
experience many headaches before true interoperability is achieved across
multi-cloud deployments.
The
database sprawl will continue as different types of databases proliferate. App developers are creating a lot of data in a lot of different ways,
but it's all bumping into each other without a servicized solution that offers
flexibility to house and manage this data. As it stands, developers are using
multiple databases for each individual application, creating a database sprawl
as users cobble together multiple databases to plug different holes in the
system. While the short-term gain of being able to use emerging technologies
and have many choices seems great upfront, companies need to consider their
long-term goals, rather than select a cobbled together, quick solution.
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About the Author
As
Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO, Ravi is responsible for product
development and delivery of the Couchbase Data Platform, which includes
Couchbase Server and Couchbase Mobile. He came to Couchbase from Oracle, where
he served as senior director of engineering and led innovation in the areas of
recommender systems and social graph, search and analytics, and lightweight
client frameworks. Also while at Oracle, Ravi was responsible for kickstarting
the cloud collaboration platform. Previously in his career, Ravi held senior
technical and management positions at BEA, Siebel, Informix, HP, and startup
BroadBand Office. Ravi holds a Master of Science degree in Mathematics from
University of Delhi.