As in previous years, IDEAS analysts recently conferred to identify the key industry trends that are poised to play out in 2010. Following are IDEAS top 10 predictions for next year (see the December issue of Tech Trends Monthly, the IDEAS newsletter, for much more detail on each topic – or sign up for a free subscription here):
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More mergers, acquisitions and alliances will occur. IDEAS expects to see some surprising moves, many of which will be opportunistic, but others due to strategic shifts in response to competitive realignments in the industry. Acquisitions could include hardware companies buying large system software companies, and more high-profile software companies buying hardware companies.
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Demand for server systems will rebound. Server deployment will pick up in 2010 due to pent-up demand, and as customers take advantage of new technology to streamline their infrastructure. Companies that do not make their IT more efficient will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. As the economy recovers, companies that optimize their business processes to maximize use of IT will gain an advantage over those that have concentrated only on cutting costs.
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Green marketing hype will subside as the issue matures. Corporate executives will remain highly focused on environmental goals for the overall corporation, but for departmental-level IT managers, "efficient IT" will gradually replace "green computing" as a priority.
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x86 servers will continue their drive into the datacenter. The sharp increase in performance of Intel's Nehalem processor will accelerate the use of x86 servers for hosting enterprise-level workloads, but x86 servers will not take on the same characteristics as the "big-iron" systems that traditionally made up the heart of datacenters. Instead, servers and storage systems will employ various forms of clustering software on inexpensive hardware to achieve scalability and reliability.
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Server form factors will progress from towers and racks to integrated appliance-like systems. Integrated solutions that combine multiple layers of IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, networking, and software, will become increasingly appealing to organizations that have the need for next-generation datacenter capabilities, but lack the depth of personnel to manage complex new technology such as virtual infrastructure.
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Server virtualization will converge with storage and network virtualization. I/O infrastructure virtualization, which applies virtualization functions to storage and networking infrastructure, will continue to evolve very rapidly throughout 2010, with high stakes for vendors to chart out positions in next-generation datacenter infrastructures.
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System software will fragment, and heterogeneous virtualization management will become a requirement. As virtualization takes hold across the industry, the operating system will begin to lose its grip on IT as the center of the software universe. Users will apply virtualization to workloads that span multiple departments or business units, and as a result, virtualization management tools will have to support multiple virtualization platforms.
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Organizations will build their own "secure" clouds. Despite continued fascination with the prospect of tapping into third-party computing infrastructures, the most pressing concern for the majority of users will be to virtualize as much as possible of their internal infrastructure into "secure" or "private" clouds.
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Public clouds will draw startups, and some experimental use by larger organizations. Startups will use cloud-based services to minimize costs and accelerate time to market, and some small companies will move routine workloads to Software as a Service (SaaS) for cost savings. Mid-sized and large enterprise companies will experiment with third-party cloud services by temporarily deploying some production workloads on them.
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IT administrator roles will take on a broader scope. With the rise of virtual infrastructure in next-generation datacenters, skill sets that traditionally fell into separate silos for servers, storage, software, and networking, will have to converge. Few people have such converged skills today, and those that do have them will become more valuable.
IT is about to get very complex as a result of consolidation and virtualization, and the very definition of a server and its components will undergo significant changes. Vendors who control parts of the IT stack today may not be the ones that control tomorrow's IT stack, and a huge battle will erupt for supplying the critical functions in new datacenters being rolled out. At the same time, IT managers will increasingly evaluate SaaS and outsourcing options for production workloads, ultimately promoting cloud computing to become one of their central business issues. 2010 will be the turning point in which organizations begin to confront some fundamental questions of where and how IT should be implemented.
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