10 key strategic technologies of 2015 according to Gartner
Each year, the analytical company Gartner publishes a list of "top 10 strategic technologies of the next year." A year ago, I published a post about the 2014 Gartner forecast . This time I’ll tell you what the Gartner list looks like for 2015, and analyze how it differs from last year’s:
It looks like BigData's “reincarnation” (which was considered the trend of 2013, but then disappeared from the “top-10”). Information analytics will play an increasing role, as more and more data is being created in the world: due to the increasing spread of mobile technologies, embedded systems, the “Internet of things”, “smart machines”, etc., and, in turn, for by increasing the need of companies to study for commercial purposes the behavior and habits of buyers using all of these technologies. Each application in the future will be accompanied by its internal or external analytical service. Companies will need to learn how to properly filter huge amounts of both structured and non-structured data from various sources, and build reports that are relevant to a specific person and a specific point in time, across all data sources. Analytics will become deeper and, at the same time, invisible to the user (due to the widespread use of embedded communication technologies).
The deep, comprehensive analytics described above will lead to the emergence of systems that can “communicate” with their surroundings, sending and receiving informational messages from other nearby “smart devices”. The pioneer in the field of context-sensitive devices will be the information security industry. For example, the server will issue confidential data to the mobile client only if it is located in a specific geographic area, inside a protected perimeter (for example, within the company's office), and in other cases the server will refuse access to such a mobile client.
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Since “smart devices” (in a broad sense) will become more and more, and each such device “wants” to have access to the network (often to the Internet immediately), protection of the perimeter of security becomes less and less effective strategy. This means that security features must move within the mobile applications and devices themselves. The architectural design of new applications should initially include information security components and these components should be tested at the application development stage. This is especially true of such new areas as the “Internet of Things” and “smart machines”, where the issue of security is primarily related to privacy issues.
In light of the increasing proliferation of mobile technologies, Gartner predicts a shift in focus from the development of individual applications for individual devices to the development of integrated mobile services that meet the needs of a mobile user in various business scenarios and diverse technological environments.
Smartphones, wearable electronics, presentation screens, smart TVs, etc. become the basis of a new technological environment, all components of which should be able to interact with each other. In addition to purely integration issues, an important task is to ensure the centralized management of all mobile devices, as companies already poorly control issues such as, for example, the information security of an employee’s personal tablet from which they access the corporate network. A separate important trend will be the development of the user interface concept for mobile business applications: the problem is that the business application interface should ideally not change much on mobile devices with different graphic screen parameters and, at the same time, be equally “familiar” and convenient to use.
Gartner formulates four main business models for the use of "devices connected to the Internet": managing various objects, payments, various functional operations and expanding the functionality of existing devices that are not connected to the Internet. As an example, the following scenarios for the use of these models can be cited: a production company can use geolocation sensors associated with the Internet, combining them with production equipment to more accurately account for the company's internal costs, the insurance company can use similar sensors installed in the car to provide a tariff “Pay in proportion to the quality of driving”, the parking can provide information on the Internet about the availability of seats - so that they can be found in Google Maps or Geosearch similar services.
Gartner predicts a 98% increase in global sales of 3D printers in 2015, followed by a doubling in 2016. 3D printing will be widespread in the next three years. The most popular applications of this technology are: industry, biomedicine and consumer goods. The economic effect of the use of 3D printing in these areas will be achieved by reducing the cost of design, prototyping and production of prototypes.
Smart machines are intelligent personal assistants, autonomous robots, intelligent global industrial systems, and other self-learning devices, systems, or applications.
The main technological problem of this class of devices is the need for deep contextual analytics, which will allow the machines to recognize and understand the environment in which they are located, to learn and to operate fully autonomously. The coming era of "smart machines", according to Gartner, will be the biggest event in the evolution of IT technologies in history.
The convergence of cloud and mobile technologies will continue, which will lead to the further spread of applications installed on "any device" and centrally managed from the cloud. The client-cloud architecture differs from the client-server architecture by at least two essential properties: (1) the client and the cloud are separated by a WAN network section (there may be a large network delay, paid traffic, limited channel width) and (2) as The client platform uses a mobile device (that is, the client has limited processor, memory and disk resources, and developers are required to use energy-efficient algorithms).
The immediate task of developers within this trend will be the task of synchronizing the working context of applications between different devices and the portability of applications between different hardware mobile platforms. Subsequently, technologies evolve so that the application can be run in parallel on various user devices. For example, now you can simultaneously launch the Google Chrome application simultaneously on the XBox and on the smartphone synchronously so that the smartphone provides the user with a keyboard, and the XBox provides the TV screen. In the future, more and more similar applications will be created.
By now, technologies of programmable (“software-defined”) networks, data warehouses, data centers, and programmable information security are reaching the point of their maturity. Many cloud services can also be efficiently configured through program calls from the client. Due to the trend of “fully programmable infrastructure”, the enterprise information system is no longer static — it is becoming increasingly dynamic and able to change its characteristics in accordance with the needs of the business. Gartner predicts further growth in applications for programmable infrastructure.
“Web-scale IT” is a global computing infrastructure design concept that provides large enterprises with the capabilities of a large cloud provider within a corporate network. The concept includes 6 elements: data centers, a web-based service delivery architecture, programmable management, flexible business processes, collaboration-oriented technologies, and the corporate culture of a “learning organization.” Examples of such businesses are Amazon, Google and Facebook. However, the spread of the “Web-scale IT” concept will not be “spasmodic,” because it depends on the stage of penetration of other assistive technologies to the market, such as, for example, the “programmable data center infrastructure” described above, and some others that have not yet received mass distribution.
Three technologies left the list, most likely because of their too narrow focus: “mobile applications”, “hybrid clouds” and “personal clouds”.
[1] Gartner Press Release (English)
[2] Last year's post "10 key strategic technologies in 2014 according to Gartner"
New trends in 2015
1. Deep comprehensive and imperceptible analytics
It looks like BigData's “reincarnation” (which was considered the trend of 2013, but then disappeared from the “top-10”). Information analytics will play an increasing role, as more and more data is being created in the world: due to the increasing spread of mobile technologies, embedded systems, the “Internet of things”, “smart machines”, etc., and, in turn, for by increasing the need of companies to study for commercial purposes the behavior and habits of buyers using all of these technologies. Each application in the future will be accompanied by its internal or external analytical service. Companies will need to learn how to properly filter huge amounts of both structured and non-structured data from various sources, and build reports that are relevant to a specific person and a specific point in time, across all data sources. Analytics will become deeper and, at the same time, invisible to the user (due to the widespread use of embedded communication technologies).
2. Context-sensitive systems
The deep, comprehensive analytics described above will lead to the emergence of systems that can “communicate” with their surroundings, sending and receiving informational messages from other nearby “smart devices”. The pioneer in the field of context-sensitive devices will be the information security industry. For example, the server will issue confidential data to the mobile client only if it is located in a specific geographic area, inside a protected perimeter (for example, within the company's office), and in other cases the server will refuse access to such a mobile client.
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3. Information Security Applications
Since “smart devices” (in a broad sense) will become more and more, and each such device “wants” to have access to the network (often to the Internet immediately), protection of the perimeter of security becomes less and less effective strategy. This means that security features must move within the mobile applications and devices themselves. The architectural design of new applications should initially include information security components and these components should be tested at the application development stage. This is especially true of such new areas as the “Internet of Things” and “smart machines”, where the issue of security is primarily related to privacy issues.
Trends from last year
4. Mobile device management
In light of the increasing proliferation of mobile technologies, Gartner predicts a shift in focus from the development of individual applications for individual devices to the development of integrated mobile services that meet the needs of a mobile user in various business scenarios and diverse technological environments.
Smartphones, wearable electronics, presentation screens, smart TVs, etc. become the basis of a new technological environment, all components of which should be able to interact with each other. In addition to purely integration issues, an important task is to ensure the centralized management of all mobile devices, as companies already poorly control issues such as, for example, the information security of an employee’s personal tablet from which they access the corporate network. A separate important trend will be the development of the user interface concept for mobile business applications: the problem is that the business application interface should ideally not change much on mobile devices with different graphic screen parameters and, at the same time, be equally “familiar” and convenient to use.
5. “Internet of Things”
Gartner formulates four main business models for the use of "devices connected to the Internet": managing various objects, payments, various functional operations and expanding the functionality of existing devices that are not connected to the Internet. As an example, the following scenarios for the use of these models can be cited: a production company can use geolocation sensors associated with the Internet, combining them with production equipment to more accurately account for the company's internal costs, the insurance company can use similar sensors installed in the car to provide a tariff “Pay in proportion to the quality of driving”, the parking can provide information on the Internet about the availability of seats - so that they can be found in Google Maps or Geosearch similar services.
6. 3D printing
Gartner predicts a 98% increase in global sales of 3D printers in 2015, followed by a doubling in 2016. 3D printing will be widespread in the next three years. The most popular applications of this technology are: industry, biomedicine and consumer goods. The economic effect of the use of 3D printing in these areas will be achieved by reducing the cost of design, prototyping and production of prototypes.
7. "Smart cars"
Smart machines are intelligent personal assistants, autonomous robots, intelligent global industrial systems, and other self-learning devices, systems, or applications.
The main technological problem of this class of devices is the need for deep contextual analytics, which will allow the machines to recognize and understand the environment in which they are located, to learn and to operate fully autonomously. The coming era of "smart machines", according to Gartner, will be the biggest event in the evolution of IT technologies in history.
8. Client-Cloud Architecture
The convergence of cloud and mobile technologies will continue, which will lead to the further spread of applications installed on "any device" and centrally managed from the cloud. The client-cloud architecture differs from the client-server architecture by at least two essential properties: (1) the client and the cloud are separated by a WAN network section (there may be a large network delay, paid traffic, limited channel width) and (2) as The client platform uses a mobile device (that is, the client has limited processor, memory and disk resources, and developers are required to use energy-efficient algorithms).
The immediate task of developers within this trend will be the task of synchronizing the working context of applications between different devices and the portability of applications between different hardware mobile platforms. Subsequently, technologies evolve so that the application can be run in parallel on various user devices. For example, now you can simultaneously launch the Google Chrome application simultaneously on the XBox and on the smartphone synchronously so that the smartphone provides the user with a keyboard, and the XBox provides the TV screen. In the future, more and more similar applications will be created.
9. All data center resources will become programmable.
By now, technologies of programmable (“software-defined”) networks, data warehouses, data centers, and programmable information security are reaching the point of their maturity. Many cloud services can also be efficiently configured through program calls from the client. Due to the trend of “fully programmable infrastructure”, the enterprise information system is no longer static — it is becoming increasingly dynamic and able to change its characteristics in accordance with the needs of the business. Gartner predicts further growth in applications for programmable infrastructure.
10. Web-Scale IT
“Web-scale IT” is a global computing infrastructure design concept that provides large enterprises with the capabilities of a large cloud provider within a corporate network. The concept includes 6 elements: data centers, a web-based service delivery architecture, programmable management, flexible business processes, collaboration-oriented technologies, and the corporate culture of a “learning organization.” Examples of such businesses are Amazon, Google and Facebook. However, the spread of the “Web-scale IT” concept will not be “spasmodic,” because it depends on the stage of penetration of other assistive technologies to the market, such as, for example, the “programmable data center infrastructure” described above, and some others that have not yet received mass distribution.
Technology last year, left the "top"
Three technologies left the list, most likely because of their too narrow focus: “mobile applications”, “hybrid clouds” and “personal clouds”.
Additional materials:
[1] Gartner Press Release (English)
[2] Last year's post "10 key strategic technologies in 2014 according to Gartner"
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/246865/
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