In 2014 we will see the acceleration of a redefined role for corporate IT. Business has new alternatives, enabled by ever expanding public cloud and SaaS providers which continues to raise the bar for internal IT.
So look for CIOs to embrace a service orientation next year. They will seek to articulate what their IT functions do as a set of services for their enterprise. Services will be presented through an intuitive interface offering clear pricing and service level objectives, as well as a variety of internally delivered and externally sourced options.
You can also expect growing numbers of “build your own” platform-as-a-service initiatives from organizations. Many IT departments have reaped tremendous benefits from service virtualization and the next wave will extend those capabilities to software-defined storage and the software-defined network. We are working together with VMware to bring this vision to the market with closely integrated technologies and product offerings.
Developing Valuable Big Data Lakes
Business leaders, disappointed by the lack of business-relevant progress from IT, will assume more responsibility for Big Data initiatives. CIOs will respond by embracing the development of new data architectures that bring together silos of data into a single data lake. Simply queries into that data lake will begin to unlock the value of Big Data for the enterprise.
CIOs will also apply similar technology to infrastructure and data center operations to gain new predictive analytics and a quantifiable lens into how organizations are developing, deploying, and managing IT services.
To make those data insights impact business in real time, we will see the development of a new class of applications that leverage Big Data in real time, developed with Agile development methodologies and very rapid release cycles.
The Beginning of Security Product Rationalization
The market will begin to formally dismiss issues which impede the “rent v. buy” decision around data protection. Risk management, legal and compliance requirements will start acting as the primary reason to move to XaaS.
We will see the beginning of security product rationalization. The control framework is the backdrop and reference point for that rationalization, placing the security discussion closer to senior leadership.
Continuous availability will also come of age. The inflection point between cost and functional benefit will become clearer in 2014, as will why and how active/active data resiliency changes the economics of redundancy.
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More Predictions for 2014
SDx (Software-Defined Everything) by Amitabh Srivastava, President, Advanced Software Division
A Battle Cry for Protected Storage by Stephen Manley, Chief Technology Officer, Data Protection & Availability Division
Software-Defined in Two Architectures by Josh Kahn, Senior Vice President, Global Solutions Marketing
Bringing Hadoop to Your Big Data by Bill Richter, President, EMC Isilon
A Whole New World by CJ Desai, President, Emerging Technologies Division
Targeting the Value Office to Transform IT Business by Rick Devenuti, President, Information Intelligence Group
IT’s Ability to Evolve Quickly by Vic Bhagat, Chief Information Officer
As BYOD Matures, BYOI is Waiting in the Wings by Art Coviello, President, RSA
