Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021.  Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Resilience was the mantra of 2020, 2021 will be the year of security

By Michael Skurla, CTO of Radix IoT

2020 has been a year of disruption for everyone living on planet Earth. Interestingly, technology has been a positive force in 2020 offering stability and growth. Though not without hurdles, the data industry (and I.T. if I were to include a category) was pushed into an amazing race to prove its claims. This was driven by end-users' needs to change and adapt to the world that became immediately reliant on its technology and platforms.  

Resilience has been the word of the year for the I.T. space. This has been exemplified in many areas. From the rapid growth of the need for e-commerce, to the now wide acceptance of video conferencing even at the consumer level, from education to critical business functions, I.T. has proven itself and (with short stumbles along the way) resilience in infrastructure has paid off.  

Would this pandemic have happened just five or 10 years ago things would have been much more challenging. From data center infrastructure to network infrastructure and cloud computing, all have proven that business and continuity of operations for many businesses was possible, and even for some, ‘profitable'. 

2020 was rushed in many respects into a new norm. Things were designed to work at an unexpected scale, almost overnight. Much was learned from this lightening pace within I.T., and norms have inevitably changed forever. Remote employees are one aspect of change that most likely will not completely revert to the 9 to 5 office work everywhere. The 2020 experience has proven in many cases, that the office overhead expense isn't worth it, and telecommuting will remain a constant at much larger numbers than ever before, enabled by technology that everyone is now comfortable using. From shopping for groceries to entertainment-although retail and live entertainment will return-expectations now have a precedent that at-home convenience will be here to stay. The adoption rate of technology got a huge boost this year, all provided by silent infrastructure behind the scenes that has proven itself and matured through 2020.

2021 ways will harden the known faults found in 2020 to continue this pattern of remote enablement for the masses. Security will be at the forefront of innovation and advancement in 2021. Given the growth of IoT monitoring and sensing, which enabled a good portion of the infrastructure that drove 2020, and the development of intelligent ecosystems in both homes and commercial applications, this area is ripe for security standards. The recent pass in the U.S. Senate of the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act will play a substantial role in crafting this and is a welcome contribution to what was always a complex world of 'edge' security. 

Additionally, 2021 will see a movement, particularly in telecommunications, to latency mitigation. Often overshadowed by marketing about speed (bandwidth), latency is the key for many reasons to real advancements in technologies such as drones, autonomous vehicle navigation, and choices that rely on split-second decisions based on analytics. Though these may seem like they are in the distant future, latency is the key to anything autonomous, from factory automation to streaming video. This latency mitigation is already being realized in the marketplace with advances such as edge data center infrastructure, allowing more localized operations. Additionally, the sharp rise of the 5G rollout by carriers aids in these steps enabling IoT infrastructure to grow ubiquitously into markets, regions, and applications.

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About the Author

 

Michael C. Skurla is the Chief Technology Officer of Radix IoT- offering limitless monitoring and management rooted in intelligence-he sets cutting-edge product strategy for the company's IoT platform. He has over two decades of experience in control automation and IoT product design with fortune 500 companies, focusing on the intersection of software and hardware that emphasizes data aggregation and analytics for mission-critical industries. As a well-recognized thought leader and a contributor to such top industry publications as Critical Facilities, Oilman Magazine, IoT Playbook, IoT News, Digitalisation World (UK), LD+A, among others, he is a frequent lecturer on the topic of outcome-based analytics and consolidated data methodologies for building and industrial applications to drive efficiency and alternative business outcomes through data. Michael is a contributing member of ASHRAE, USGBC, and IES Education.