Trends 2016: Transformations in the making

 By Edgar Das

Moving into 2016, more businesses are expected to leverage smart machines and transformative technologies to give them an unfair advantage.

As 2015 draws to a close, Brocade looks into the crystal ball to outline the top transformative technology trends in networking to watch for in 2016 and beyond:

1) The cloud will gain even greater traction: According to IDC, more than half of all IT spending is going to be on the third platform, otherwise known as cloud-based technologies, and that figure will surpass 60 percent of all IT spending by 2020.

The migration of old, legacy IP network architectures to New IP networks will accelerate, reaching near-mainstream adoption as enterprises and service providers transform their networks into an open, software-driven platform for innovation and a competitive edge.

2) Software-based networks are clearly the future: Over the past year, software has transformed the data center and networks in general, with service providers and enterprises turning to Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) to create new services quickly, scale them easily, and deliver them in user-centric ways.

2016 will bring about the expanded adoption of innovative, open, and automated software networking platforms as enterprises and service providers migrate to New IP networks.

The increasing deployment of x86 server architecture will accelerate this transformation, replacing specialized networking hardware in multiple network roles, such as Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs).

3) The importance of security will skyrocket: Organizations operating in today's New IP networking environment face increasing demands for cloud-based applications and need to support social, mobile, and Big Data initiatives.

However, security-related attacks and breaches continue to impede the delivery of services and create additional challenges to network and service reliability. New IP networking solutions allow organizations to deploy more advanced security that is designed into the network from the start, not bolted on at edge to existing infrastructure. The network itself can be pervasively vigilant and track behavior on and not just access to the network, to quickly identify and prevent unwanted activity.

Security services can be virtualized, enabling organizations to distribute security wherever it is needed and customize security at various levels—by geography or location, function, group or individual, or application.

4) DevOps will play a much larger role: DevOps, or any agile software development methodology that closely matches services with business demands, will gain widespread influence and uptake among both enterprises and service providers as a way to ensure they remain competitive.

According to IDC, enterprises pursuing digital transformation strategies will more than double their software development capabilities by 2018.

Companies that build and use field-focused development teams that operate without the constraints of rigid traditional product development processes will have a significant advantage in customer-focused innovation. This advantage extends to both the speed of development and to customer intimacy and retention.

5) Big Data and analytics will get even bigger: Organizations that are able to take advantage of the explosion of data will seize the day, and many of these disrupters will be start-ups that use Big Data to make strategic decisions based on analytics.

As data gets increasingly colossal, so do the opportunities, skillsets, and demand for analytic and cognitive services across industries. The ability to derive intelligence from Big Data in real-time will create a distinct competitive edge for any business.

6) Machine learning takes off: The advent of machine learning is the computing breakthrough made possible by Big Data.

The emergence of algorithms that can learn from and even make predictions based on the enormous amounts of data and meta-data that are generated, transmitted, and stored via networks will change the world of data centers and networks beginning in 2016.

This process is already underway, as facial and speech recognition are changing the worlds of consumer electronics and the cloud services that use them, and anomaly detection is quickly becoming a crucial part of network security.

7) The rise of the telco with virtual architecture: Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) that have been struggling to keep up with fast-changing customer needs and market opportunities will be compelled to embrace SDN and NFV in 2016.

The risk of falling behind is set to intensify with each passing day as carriers and service providers that embrace change will become the winners in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem and 5G race by 2020.

8) The technical talent crunch gets serious: Vendors, service providers, and user organizations are all competing for a limited pool of next-generation talent with the required coding and technical skills.

The talent crunch issue will become increasingly acute, and organizations will have to rethink their human resource strategies and policies in order to attract, develop, and retain strong talent. Technical qualifications that were only recently seen as de facto passports to important positions in networking will change in the face of self-provisioning and self–programming networks. Increasingly, critical networking positions will begin to require advanced analytical and coding skills that are in very short supply today.

(The author, Edgar Das, is Senior Regional Director, Brocade India and SAARC)