Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020.  Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

By Steve Litster, Chief Technology Officer, Markley Group

The Secure, Geo-Distributed Network

2019 has been a boom year for data. Organizations have continued to create more data, year over year, than ever before. But as those of us in the information technology business know, it has, arguably, also been a bust year for data. As data proliferates across on-premise networks and into public cloud services and edge computing environments, organizations are more susceptible to security issues and data leakage.

In that vein, in the year ahead, it's my prediction that data security will be a central theme affecting every aspect of the IT environment in ways we've never seen - IT consumers will enter a new age of security-consciousness; more data living at the edge will simply expand our already large attack surface; the concept of the data center must grow to accommodate a geo-distributed, multi-cloud secure network; and more.

Here are my thoughts for the year ahead:

The Security-Conscious Consumer. Historically, the drive toward secured networks has come from companies and the security-minded folks within those companies. More and more individuals are recognizing the need for security and are starting to demand it of the companies they do business with.

"Cloud 1st" is Dead. Hybrid will be the dominant model, with cloud repatriation of some existing workloads and more careful ongoing analysis of what runs in the cloud. Users become "Cloud Smart," recognizing that, for many workloads and/or a required computing run-rate level, public cloud is more costly than operating it yourself with on-premises and colocated solutions.

Containerized Applications Come of Age. Tools and technologies reduce the friction of developing, onboarding, and managing a new generation of portable apps. Hybrid ecosystems become more seamless through increased container-based automation and migration tools.

Edge Computing Heightens Security Concerns. The proliferation of IoT initiatives plus growing horsepower and data stores at the edge significantly increase the attack surface organizations must resolve and evolve to protect.

Zero Trust Pervades the Internal Network. Data privacy and security concerns impel the hardening of internal infrastructure to include data encryption both in-flight and at-rest. Hybrid architectures force IT organizations to re-evaluate their concept of the 'internal network' and consider Internet-independent private network alternatives.

IT Services and Communications Far Exceed Platforms (HW/SW) Spend. Chronic skills shortages and increasing demand for secure, high bandwidth, wide area networking technologies (SD-WAN, 5G, IoT) drive increased demand for IT services and managed network services.

Ransomware Rears its Ugly Head. Though it never really went away, high profile ransomware attacks make worldwide headlines forcing refocus and IT investments in ransomware mitigation, data protection, and recovery.

The Data Deluge Continues Unabated. Increasing data stores of unconfirmed value exacerbate data management and curation challenges. Both IT and lines of business search for better solutions to evaluate and manage data life cycles.

Object Storage Reborn. More and more applications supporting S3 protocol will drive mainstream adoption as a storage interface for both on-prem and in-the-cloud applications. High performance, high-density object storage will start to trickle on to the market and find application in large scale data analytics and HPC workloads.

The AI Bloom is Off the Rose. AI will hit the trough of disillusionment and stall as skills shortages, limited access to clean data, and lacking proof of correctness impede widespread adoption.

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About the Author

 

Steve Litster, Ph.D, is the Chief Technology Officer at Markley Group. Steve has more than twenty years of experience in designing enterprise infrastructure, large scale networks, and scalable cloud-based solutions, and helps to shape Markley's strategies and solutions to meet organizations' emerging requirements to address an increasingly connected and data-driven world. Most recently, he was the Global Lead for Scientific Computing at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Steve has also held positions at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Harvard University.