December | 2012

The cloud will emerge in all parts of the IT

More services have been emerged in 2012, the adoption will drive more cloud, and more cloud offerings will parer. This circle will speed-up and drive more Enterprises in evaluating the next private cloud.

The engine will be build in the manufacturing not at customer premise

In many enterprises 2012 has started a evaluation of converged infrastructure. Since most of the used components are standardized the „build on customer site“ or „do-it-by-myself“ will be more and more questioned by the CFO. Like in the past where whole servers where build by locals or enterprises itself, it is obvious that the purchasing department will have a different look when it comes to TCO. This will also start to include backup and security. The order will be moving to workloads and software demands rather than core´s and PB of storage or Network interconnects. The VCE model will become the standard delivery methods for modern DC architectures.

Consummation of IT will drive more business adoption in the cloud

The DC will have more direct contact with the end customers. This was in 2012 one of the main drivers, build thru Google/Android and Apple/iCloud. This will move faster. The new paradigm enables enterprises to optimize cost and optimize the business model when direct talk to the end-customers. In 2013 we will see that this shifts also into computer-to-computer relationships. The interaction of b2b mash will lead to faster purchasing and information flow to optimize the business, and early adopter will be the winners. Key here is an agile IT infrastructure.

Cloud will feed BigData, BigData will enable more cloud

Each one is depended from another. With more cloud, the information streams are better to combine for BigData Analysis, with more BigData analysis and applications, more agile computing environments (called cloud) are necessary. This will be a big trend, but depending on the industry. New businesses will learn to use the information streams, new forms of analytics will be generated to enhance the processes and decision making progress.

Flash will be leading the storage industry

The last years flash was used as replacement for spinning disk. This has a huge impact in performance and utilization of computing power. Man-years of brain power where spent to develop smart algorithms to leverage the new TIER in the storage. This will continue to evolve and with the drop in price and increase of capacity the market will grow dramatically. However flash has not only be squeezed into spinning disk, it also allowed to transform and implement new algorithm´s to utilize the power of flash. When IO´s no longer the limiting factor, CPU power can be used to leverage the performance in the storage system to do much more tasks which delivering high performance to the server´s.

The CIO will refocus on the core: the Information

With all the changes in IT, the transformation of the roles in the IT management will not stop. Since the DC gravitate to the information it is obvious to see that the CIO will be the master of the information. Not only the information processing in the own DC also the information needed form outside, like BigData applications, also informations given to outside, i.e. to customers. New technologies like the app horizon manager from VMware will support this transition and the CIO and team will be transformed into the information broker, security agent and consultant for the business lines.

Standardization will enable more productivity

One aspect of going from private cloud to hybrid is the standardization. Many companies, like Microsoft, Google or Amazon u.o. define the API and push them as de-facto standard. Experience showed that the early adopter often drive this, but run against a wall in a couple of years. Ethernet/IP and FC would not have been so broadly accepted if there was not a standards body formed. We see currently various associations to take on the role in the cloud, like the SNIA organization. This is the only way to help the DC out of the „do it by my self“ and focus on more business relevant tasks. The engine (converged infrastructure) will be developed and assembled in the vendors premise and the Enterprise DC managers can focus on the utilization.

The storm on clouds will drive orchestration

When, in the past, virtualization was introduced to customers, the VM landscape was able to be controlled by man kind. It is similar to the SAN in the early 2000´s when the storage array was still close to a server. This will continue to chance, when we will see 10.000 of VM´s in modern DC architectures. The orchestration will lead to the agility which is necessary to drive more business flexibility. Vendors, led by VMware, will provide here more sophisticated solutions to automate.

Keys. (Photo credit: Bohman)

Security and Trust will be in the middle of everything

Since Information is the key, like it was in the past but now it is a more open world, to secure is one of the key elements. The business will ask for answers, and companies like RSA will lead the way. Not only to secure also to trust other organizations is essential. With new regulations and demands of the business information has to be more trustworthy.

InMemory systems will draw investments from infrastructure

Since InMemory systems show more demand on the „main“-Memory than Hi-IO rates, it will re-architect the infrastructure in this area. 2013 will show if this new technologies will add new fields of applications or replace other. Technologies like GemFire, Hana u.o. will drive faster decision making and new infrastructure architectures. Combined with flash companies like SAP and EMC will drive the Industry here.