We are currently undergoing major technological and economic changes. Technology companies are taking over entire industries, where, regardless of the area of business, companies are moving to digital transformation strategies to be able to increase their operational performance, respond flexibly to market needs, and at the same time ensure security for themselves and their customers. And what awaits us in 2021?
Strategic involvement of developers
Developers will have a greater say in choosing technology focus and determining data strategies for companies. IT executives will be more dependent on their development teams to lead the company's technical direction. Historically, development teams have taken a top-down approach to move their data to the cloud, but that has changed with the pandemic and the strengthening of cloud environments. In 2021, we will see that DevOps teams will have a growing say in the process of data strategy. As a result, we will see a further increase in job mobility, which will correlate with an increase in the use of cloud data management techniques.
Greater focus on data protection and data management platforms for cloud collaboration
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have expanded their ability to work from home, and the need to rely on cloud collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Slack will increase. This means that even more teams will try to use the power of the cloud to store the influx of data from collaboration platforms. In 2021, this will generate greater interest, awareness, and the need for data protection and management within collaboration software.
Software-defined models will be more preferred
With the shift towards software-defined models, hardware devices will lose their attractiveness because they did not have constant performance. We are seeing a shift away from hardware devices and a shift to backup-as-a-service. Remote work during a pandemic had a real impact on how we handled hardware in 2020, which will continue in 2021 when software-defined models will come to the fore.
Machine learning will be democratized in conjunction with data in the cloud
Organizations recognize the unlimited opportunities they have at their disposal through the data they gather. The re-use of data will be another major trend we will see in organizations in 2021, with many calling for the power of machine learning. The adoption of machine learning will continue to grow as organizations realize how much it can help them analyze and reuse the data they already have. As a result, the use of machine learning in the cloud will make organizations smarter.
Containers are not becoming a common technology
Forecasts over the past few years indicate that containers will become a commonly used technology, but this is not expected in 2021. Large companies will continue to use Kubernetes, as this container technology allows them portability for moving off the cloud and unlimited scaling. However, the complexity associated with its deployment limits its adoption outside large companies. As part of the ongoing adoption in companies, it will also be necessary to develop native Kubernetes backups, as these environments are fundamentally different from environments based on earlier technologies. We will see new solutions that either implement or extend data protection to the Kubernetes application.
IT spending will increase - security and hardware will be at the top of the list
Despite the economic turbulence caused by the pandemic in 2020, we will see a 5 to 10 per cent increase in total IT spending in the new year. Their allocation is likely to focus most on security, general system upgrades such as backup, applications, cloud migration, and hardware replacement. Besides, organizations will address what was suspended in 2020 to address IT spending, which is repeated every year. For example, hardware should be renewed every three years, and if a pandemic has diverted the organization's attention from hardware, it must be said to be at the top of the list.
What are your technological predictions for 2021?