Gartner has highlighted the key technologies and trends that infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders must start preparing for to support digital infrastructure in 2019.
Gartner analysts presented the findings during the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies Conference.
“More than ever, I&O is becoming increasingly involved in unprecedented areas of the modern day enterprise. The focus of I&O leaders is no longer to solely deliver engineering and operations, but instead deliver products and services that support and enable an organisation’s business strategy,” said Ross Winser, senior research director at Gartner. “The question is already becoming ‘How can we use capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI), network automation or edge computing to support rapidly growing infrastructures and accomplish business needs?'”
The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019, according to Gartner
Infrastructure and operations leaders need to prepare for digital transformation in 2019, by embracing the top 10 key technologies and trends needed to support digital infrastructure, according to Gartner.
Top 10 trends impacting infrastructure and operations for 2019 are:
1. Serverless computing
Serverless computing is an emerging software architecture pattern that promises to eliminate the need for infrastructure provisioning and management. I&O leaders need to adopt an application-centric approach to serverless computing, managing APIs and SLAs, rather than physical infrastructures.
“The phrase ‘serverless’ is somewhat of a misnomer,” noted Winser. “The truth is that servers still exist, but the service provider is responsible for all the underlying resources involved in provisioning and scaling a runtime environment, resulting in appealing agility.”
How can business introduce a multi-cloud strategy into their operations?
Serverless does not replace containers or virtual machines, so it’s critical to learn how best and where to use the technology.
“Developing support and management capabilities within I&O teams must be a focus as more than 20 per cent of global organisations will have deployed serverless computing technologies by 2020, which is an increase from less than 5% today,” added Winser.
2. AI impacts
AI’s value is increasing, in terms of how it will serve I&O leaders who need to manage growing infrastructures without being able to grow their staff. AI has the potential to be organisationally transformational and is at the core of digital business, the impacts of which are already being felt within organisations. According to Gartner, global AI-derived business value will reach nearly $3.9 trillion by 2022.
3. Network agility (or lack of?)
The network underpins everything IT does — cloud services, Internet of Things (IoT), edge services — and will continue to do so moving forward. It’s not just an exercise in keeping the lights on anymore!
“Teams have been under pressure to ensure network availability is high and as such the team culture is often to limit change, yet all around the network team the demands for agility have increased,” said Winser.
The focus for 2019 and beyond must move to how I&O leaders can help their teams increase the pace of network operations to meet demand.
The agile network will power digital transformation through businesses
“Part of the answer is building network agility that relies on automation and analytics, and addressing the real skills shift needed to succeed,” continued Mr Winser.
The demands on the network are set to grow with the advent of 5G, increasing cloud maturity, and the explosion in numbers of IoT devices. “These are just a few of the pressures leaders should anticipate — so the critical time frame to deal with this challenge is now,” said Winser.
4. Death of the data centre
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of organisations will migrate entirely away from on-premises data centres with the current trend of moving workloads to colocation, hosting and the cloud leading them to shut down their traditional data centre.
“I&O leaders must prepare to place workloads based on business needs, not constrained by physical location. From colocation through to public cloud — plenty of alternatives to on-premises data centres exist. Leaders must identify whether there are truly strategic reasons to persist with on-premises needs, especially when they consider the significant amount of investment involved is often amortised over many years,” said Mr Winser. Preparations must begin now, as the critical time frame for this is 2021 to 2025.
5. Edge computing
IoT and immersive technologies will drive more information processing to the edge, redefining and reshaping what I&O leaders will need to deploy and manage. The edge is the physical location where things and people connect with the networked digital world, and infrastructure will increasingly reach out to the edge.
Edge computing is a part of a distributed computing topology where information processing is located close to the edge, which is where things and people produce or consume that information. It touches on the laws of physics, economy and land, all of which are contributing factors to how and when to use edge.
“This is another trend that does not replace the cloud, but augments it,” said Winser. “The critical time frame for organisations to adopt this trend is between 2020 and 2023.”
Everything you need to know about edge computing
6. Digital diversity management
Digital diversity management is not about people, but rather about the discovery and maintenance of assets that are ‘out there’ in any given modern digital enterprise.
“There has been huge growth in the range and quantity of ‘things’ that I&O is expected to know about, be supporting and be managing,” said Winser. “Traditional asset management is still important, but we’re moving into the realms of involvement with new assets that might have direct effects on the finances, health and welfare of the organisation’s customers.”
Preparing I&O is vital now before the critical time frame of 2020 to 2025.
7. New roles within infrastructure and operations
I&O leaders find that staffing justifications require resolving complex relationships between costs, activities and customer quality expectations. Explaining I&O staffing requirements to IT and business leaders in terms of business value by connecting staffing levels to business performance and strategic objectives is a must in today’s modern digital enterprise.
“For instance, IT is increasingly taking on the role of supporting cloud services in terms of aggregation, customisation, integration and governance. A big challenge with cloud services is keeping costs under control, and the business expects I&O to be doing just that. Rather than focusing solely on engineering and operations, I&O must develop the capabilities needed to broker services; these will require different roles to the I&O of old,” said Winser. The critical time frame for this trend starts immediately in 2019.
8. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) denial
SaaS is software that is owned, delivered and managed remotely by one or more providers. The provider delivers software based on one set of common code and data definitions that is consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers at any time on a pay-for-use basis or as a subscription based on use metrics.
In 2019 and beyond, SaaS will have a big impact on how organisations look at infrastructure delivery strategies moving forward. However, most I&O leaders are still focused on infrastructure as a service and platform as a service solutions.
“SaaS itself is becoming a level of complexity that IT shops aren’t yet coping with as they should. The shift to SaaS must be accompanied with I&O support, all the way from ensuring visibility is maintained of what is in use, through to supporting compliance requirements and enterprise integration needs. Leaders must start this now as the pressure will be on through 2021 and beyond,” said Winser.
9. Talent management becomes critical
Historically, IT staff have been vertically organised based around the technology stack they managed. As infrastructures go digital, there becomes a need for people to work horizontally across stacks in order to identify and remediate technology work stoppages in their business.
Expanding I&O skill sets, practices and procedures to accommodate hybrid operations is of the utmost importance in 2019 and beyond.
“In short, talent is the critical ingredient for a modern, high-performing technology organisation, and great talent is in high demand. People that show versatility and adaptability are quickly becoming must-haves, particularly in hybrid environments,” said Winser.
Procurement goes digital: technology, talent and insight
10. Global infrastructure enablement
Despite few infrastructures being truly ‘global’ in nature, organisations must still prepare for the notion of ‘infrastructure everywhere’. While doing so, I&O leaders must work within the constraints of tight budgets and cost pressures.
One way to tackle this challenge is to wisely choose the network of partners needed for global success.
“I&O leaders must look hard at their existing partners and raise the bar of expectation. Can they clearly identify the value the partner will bring to them in the context of global infrastructure? Are they unlocking all the value from recent investments their partners have been making?” said Winser. “There will be no time for ‘B-team’ partners in 2019 and beyond — I&O leaders must be on top of this trend between 2020 and 2023.”
