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

By Executives from HiveIO

Moore’s Law, Cloud Migration, Perceived Data Value, and More

Artificial intelligence, data security, and connected clouds were hot topics in 2019, but what’s to come in the next year and beyond? Executives from HiveIO weigh in on what technology will evolve, what trends will become prominent, and what others will become obsolete.

Ofer Bezalel, Founder and Chief Development Officer

THE DEATH OF MOORE’S LAW

Moore’s Law is the theory that the number of transistors that could fit on a microchip would roughly double every two years. Its relevance has been debated over the past few years, and in 2020, we expect the end of the era. For more than half a century, Moore’s Law drove the aspirations of the semiconductor industry. However, continuing to shrink and place more transistors on a single chip has proven to be too challenging and produces the same power density as “older” chips. This means we’re at the end of guaranteed year-to-year growth in raw computing power.

While the result is the end of this particular type of innovation, it opens new doors for device designers to get even more creative with the 10 billion transistors they have to work with. We may begin to see a re-evaluation of the architecture used or a return to RISC, where the emphasis is more on the efficiency of cycles versus efficiency of “instructions.” We also anticipate a race to increase the number of cores on a processor. AMD has taken the lead with 64 cores on a single CPU. Others believe a single CPU is now more efficient than a dual CPU server.

Toby Coleridge, Vice President of Product

MAJORITY OF CLOUD MIGRATION HAS OCCURRED

For years, the industry has predicted a mass migration into the cloud. While this prediction was accurate – with nearly 75% of data now housed in the cloud – we are no longer in the migration phase. In 2020, the rate of migration will decrease as most organizations interested in implementing a cloud strategy have already set down this path. The next evolution will now begin to see the focus on automation within the cloud and how on-premise, cloud and edge computing can be leveraged together for a superior IT strategy.

SERVERS GET SMALLER

Looking at servers over the last three to five years, one thing that hasn’t changed is price. For example, customers are still paying the same dollar value for a server that can virtualize 80-100 desktops. To scale out the architecture, more servers are added. Even if a user only needs 10 additional virtual machines, a full server is purchased. By bucking this trend that has been in place for the past 10 years, we may see enterprises follow some of the cloud providers and move back towards single-socket servers in 2020. These ‘smaller’ servers can be more efficient from both a resource utilization and cost perspective.

George Nealon, Vice President of Global Sales

PROCESSING THE VALUE OF DATA

Data is increasingly recognized as one of the most valuable assets an organization has. However, most businesses struggle to process the data they have and fully understand the value of it. Within the next year, we will begin to see a shift in spending on the tools that process data and provide business insight. Companies with more meaningful data will see their valuations increase faster than the more traditional measure of revenue. The ultimate titans will be those companies that are both profitable and have access to valuable data.

VERTICAL MARKETS GROW SMARTER TO MEET END-USER DEMANDS

As the value of data becomes more prominent, vertical markets will adopt AI-enabled technologies to gain more insight into the data they have readily available. For example, the healthcare industry will go to greater lengths in collecting data to meet end-user demands in 2020. By capturing more personal data, these organizations will be able to more accurately assist patients and predict their needs; in the next 5 years, we will see patient biometrics sent directly from their gym or IoT device to their doctor’s office.

Another example is around how technology can help evolve a vertical market is in the education sector. Today’s generation of ‘digital natives’ – or individuals who grew up with technology – require immediate gratification and a deeper level of knowledge and understanding. These students demand instant access to information and smarter workstations. Due to these higher expectations, more educational facilities will adopt a VDI ecosystem, which will play a critical role in the learning environment. Starting in 2020, we will see a shift in the entire education system – and VDI will be a key enabler for this.

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