Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2020. Read them in this 12th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Kamesh Pemmaraju, Platform9
Three Key Tech Trends Coming in 2020
In recent years, Kubernetes has drastically changed the software delivery landscape. But like any other facet of tech, the only constant is change. Here is a look forward at what industry-defining trends will shape the landscape in 2020 and beyond.
Containerization Will Take Another Step Forward
In this year (and even before), we have seen many organizations employing containers to help streamline their development pipelines. However, for many mainstream enterprises, this has meant “kicking the tires” and proofs of concept for relatively small clusters. But as smaller-scale applications prove to drive value, we’re expecting to see companies scale rapidly.
With this scaling, we expect to see a big increase in the focus put on something we call the “ilities” — availability, reliability, upgradability, maintainability, and scalability — as it relates to containers. How can we take all the benefits of the containers we’ve implemented with success and grow them to impact the business at large? Enterprises are up for the challenge — but it’s going to be a big step forward for many organizations.
The Growth of the Thick Edge
This trend will shape the landscape for the next several years — that is, the shift of data to the edge. Driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), telecom coverage continued expansion, and the proliferation of smart devices — from appliances to home security products, to automobiles — we expect to see a massive change in the flow of data.
As this growth of the IoT and smart devices reaches a tipping point, we expect to see a good percentage of data that is generated at the edge. With all of this edge data will come a corresponding need for data processing. The real impact of edge data will be in making data-driven decisions nearly instantaneously. The act of taking edge data and transporting it to a data center may slow down the process enough to limit its value and effectiveness. So with that in mind, we predict the growth of something called the “thick edge.”
Essentially this means that data is not only being produced by the edges, but will also be consumed and processed at the edge – as computations at the edge become the norm.
In this instance, smart sensors will not just be capable of collecting data but also having some level of processing power to interpret what it collects. These sensors will then transmit the information to an intermediate location — the place known as the “thick edge” — which will have more processing power and can help relay information back.
Edge Networking and Security at Scale
As data production and processing move towards the edge, it will also influence another large trend for the year to come — how to manage networking and security as the core data systems become increasingly decentralized. In 2020, we expect to see some very interesting applications come to light that addresses these challenges. We also anticipate that more instances on containers and Kubernetes will move towards the edge as well and help solve some of these challenges.
It is an incredibly exciting time to be in the world of tech. As customer expectations increase and applications become increasingly complex and sophisticated, the challenges and opportunities are many. Keep an eye out for these trends to take shape in the next year and change the way you build and deploy software.
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About the Author
Kamesh leads product marketing at Platform9. Prior to joining Platform9, Kamesh has several years of product management and marketing experience at Dell, Mirantis and ZeroStack focused on delivering open source private and hybrid cloud solutions to enterprises and service providers.
