Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Kevin Deierling, Vice President, Marketing, Mellanox
10 Hot Tech Trends for 2020 - The Year of the Dragon
Well for a start it's the Year of the Tokyo Olympics - not
irrelevant for the IT industry, as this promises to be the first 5G Olympics.
We have come a long way since 1924, when the Paris Olympics were the first to
be, only partly, covered by live radio broadcast. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were
the first to be televised, but only broadcast across Berlin and Potsdam in
Germany. Worldwide television coverage only began in 1960 Rome Olympics, and
the 1964 Tokyo Olympics were the first to be transmitted live across the
Pacific by satellite. The 2012 London Olympics could claim to be the first
smartphone games. Although the Apple iPhone was launched the year before the 2008
Beijing Olympics, few expected that by 2012 there would be a whole new way to
experience Olympic highlights via a burgeoning population of spectators' 3G
smartphones.
So, despite the recent slow-down of 5G rollout plans, Japan
is determined to make the most of this opportunity to flex its technology
muscles - from a planned man-made multicolor meteor shower at the opening
ceremony, through 360 degree 8K VR streams, to a population of 5G-connected
robots helping overseas visitors find their way. This exposure will surely fuel
public demand, and prise open the floodgates for a new generation of 5G apps -
see below.
Looking more closely behind the scenes of our industry,
however, we see other key trends to look out for.
2. Automation v AI
Promotional literature writing
algorithms have made sure that no product announcement omitted the letters "AI"
during 2019. But, as people are becoming more educated in the significance of
artificial intelligence, many are realizing that a lot of so-called AI is actually
the automation of intelligent decisions, rather than a full-blooded exercise in
machine learning and deep data mining. So, expect more honest use of the word
"automation" instead of intelligence next year. Although fully autonomous
vehicles are still a distant prospect, look out for truly effective business
automation in quite surprisingly "un-mechanical" operations. For example, the
Australian company Renewtrak - boosting clients' profits with its automated
subscription renewals service.
3. Simplicity - from virtue to
necessity
That automation is a key part of a
general trend towards simplifying operations, notably network management.
According to Gartner's April 2019 Strategic Roadmap for Networking Report,
"Approximately 70 percent of data center networking tasks are performed
manually, which increases time, cost and likelihood of errors, and reduces
flexibility." So much talent is being wasted on these routine tasks that nearly
40 percent of companies are finding it hard to recruit qualified staff,
according to Uptime Institute. Companies like Apstra have been developing and
demonstrating vendor-agnostic software solutions (such as Intent Based
Networking) to simplify network management. In 2019 these solutions began to be
noticed, in 2020 they should gain real traction.
4. VCs getting fried on chips
Not that we will see the end of AI
headlines: with dozens of new startups, the Hunger Games for AI Chip Startups
begins in 2020. Some of these startups are very well funded (Cambricon,
Cerebras, Habana, Graphcore, Groq, SambaNova, Sensetime ... to name just a few). However, too many VCs carry a lemming gene, and will jump
into any startup with ‘AI' in their name. The problem is that investing just to
fill a perceived category gap in the portfolio is akin to jumping off a cliff
just because the guy in front of you did. This is definitely the case with too
much money, funding too many AI startups. Now there will definitely be some
startup winners, who get acquired (we've already seen the first of these
with Habana Labs being acquired by Intel). However,
the space is way over-funded and the shake out will begin in earnest in 2020.
5. Heavy competition
What's more, the big boys,
including GPU providers and Google with Tensorflow processors, are investing in
both hardware and software to support a broad range of AI workloads. So those
AI start-ups will need to demonstrate real traction to keep up. But, just
maybe, one of them might actually win the Hunger Games in 2020?
6. Domain Specific
Processors.
With the End of Moore's Law,
new purpose-built processors will be needed if the industry is to continue to
improve the performance and efficiency of computing - while lowering cost. But
now instead of benefitting from ever smaller transistors, the gains will come
from innovation at an architectural level. So look out for the rise of
specialized processors for specific functions such as accelerating storage,
networking, security - and AI.
7. Enter the Dragon
Everyone is waiting for the
"Killer App" at the edge to emerge. Of course, 5G isn't an app but, as the
necessary communication infrastructure layer, it is the vital missing piece.
But once deployed broadly it will provide the low latency and network slicing
capabilities to enable that predicted surge in next generation edge apps. And
the Olympic spotlight will surely give that a boost.
8. New Apps for Old
To parody The Who song Won't
Get Fooled Again: "meet the new apps, same as the old apps ..." To create
truly innovative apps that actually work you need real familiarity with and
experience of the underlying technology - not just a dream of what might be
possible. So expect the first rush of 5G apps to be improvement on current
favourites like Otter.Ai transcription, speech and facial recognition, and
machine-educated recommendations from our virtual assistants. But expect them
to be better, faster and more accurate. Look forward to more people saying "it
just works" towards the end of 2020.
9. SD-WAN on a roll
This is a no-brainer, because
SD-WAN is already one of the industry's fastest growth segments. MEF Proof of
Concept Demonstrations often identify working technologies that promise real
mileage in following years. This year MEF19 awarded six companies for SD-WAN
over Satellite Access, and another six, including Versa Networks and Spirent
Communications, for Orchestrated Virtualized Multivendor SD-WAN Services.
Multivendor is key here: allowing the customer to choose open, off-the-shelf
hardware platforms eliminates CPE lock in. Communication Service Providers
(CSPs) have a tremendous opportunity to become strategic partners to their
enterprise customers by offering a competitive managed SD-WAN offering.
So expect even more SD-WAN growth
in 2020.
10. Apps become the Edge
Until now app developers had
little control over the network their apps would run across, they were at the
mercy of legacy constructs like VPNs. Things are looking very different now,
with the launch of the first app developer platform to enable programmable,
zero trust networking. The recently launched NetFoundry Fabric allows
connectivity to be written into the app as code, effectively embedding the
Fabric's zero trust security and optimized performance end to end with no
reliance on dedicated networks. This will dramatically reduce the time lag from
app development to launch - definitely a space worth watching in 2020.
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About the Author
Kevin Deierling
has served as Mellanox's VP of marketing since March 2013. Previously he served
as VP of technology at Genia Technologies, chief architect at Silver Spring
Networks and ran marketing and business development at Spans Logic.