Here is our 2021 predictions for technology trends you should know about.
After what feels like the longest year of our lives – it is finally time to say goodbye to 2020. The start of a new decade has had its share of surprises… to say the least. 2020 has been many things. We’ve seen the IT industry go through rapid changes to support a sudden remote workforce, the rise of artificial intelligence and more. So, what does that mean for next year?
The experts at LiveAction throughout the year have kept their fingers on the pulse of the industry and gathered their predictions for what awaits us in the coming months.
AIOps: The Hero 2021 Needs
Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see AIOps on our predictions for 2021 – or on every other technology predictions article. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been an emerging solution that many enterprises have either begun to adopt or adding to their IT roadmap. Who wouldn’t want ITOps to move quickly and more efficiently? We predict that the dramatic changes to the network operations and usage over the last eight months will continue throughout 2021.
Due to the increasingly complex network, NetOps teams need the ability to understand these new network baselines, bandwidth usage trends, application SLAs, and the new potential bottlenecks or trouble hotspots brought on by increased usage of cloud services, changing traffic patterns and migration from traditional WAN to SDWAN networks. This is where AIOps comes becomes the true hero of 2021.
By constantly looking at the network and applications, it gains an understanding of what is normal (from an availability, performance, quality of service perspective) and thus what is abnormal. Providing real-time insights to the network drastically frees up the time of IT personnel, previously burdened with tediously troubleshooting a complex network, can now focus on future-proofing infrastructure. A comprehensive network performance monitoring solution coupled with AIOps will be the winning pair for any NetOps team in the upcoming year.
Weather Forecast is Looking Cloudy
It should come as no surprise to see that cloud technology isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Quite the opposite, the cloud will be everywhere as organizations continue to adopt the technology. Cloud technology isn’t exactly an emerging technology, but due to COVID-19, nearly 60% of enterprises expect cloud technology usage to exceed the prior projected figures.
This news should come as no surprise considering that it’s becoming increasingly apparent that if your business has not yet begun its digital transformation that it will soon be unable to compete with those that have embraced a digital business model. As organizations continue to adopt the cloud, the need for IT teams to invest in Network Performance Management (NPM) solutions that can quickly analyze these larger, more distributed network footprints. As it stands now, a top challenge for NetOps when working with the cloud is the lack of visibility. In addition to visibility, the right NPM platform can reveal whether load balancing and other application delivery services are properly configured. It can also verify compliance with security and access policies and reveal whether any legitimate traffic will be rejected by security controls.
Our prediction? Organizations that invest in an NPM to work in tandem with their public and private cloud will that increased visibility and reliability will dramatically increase employee productivity and customer acquisition.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Adoption on the Rise
2020 has thrown a few curveballs, to say the least, but this emerging technology is sure to be on the radar for those looking to beef up their business continuity plans. Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) technology converges networking and network security into a single, cloud-delivered offering to support the needs of digital business transformation, edge computing and workforce mobility.
While SASE may still be in the early stages of market development, according to Gartner, by 2024 at least 40% of enterprises will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE. So why do we care about it now? We predict this timeline will be cut in half, and we will see tremendous growth over the next two years. This increased rate of adoption will be somewhat spurred by the pandemic as organizations scramble to securely connect and enable WFH employees.
NPM platforms will be a necessity to provide better insight to IT teams. Especially when monitoring the traffic between SASE, public and private cloud environments and on-premises locations.
Saying Goodbye to 2020
The biggest lesson we may have learned this year is that nothing is set in stone. We may not know exactly what the new year will hold, but as we look past on everything we learned in 2020; however, we believe that a comprehensive NPM platform will be a necessity to provide better insight to IT teams, Especially when monitoring the traffic between SASE, public and private cloud environments and on-premises locations.
2020 has certainly been… something. And I think we’re all ready to put this year behind us – far behind us. See you in the New Year!
