2014 Predictions

1. The cloud market will shift and we’ll see specialised clouds emerge in 2014
Until now cloud computing generally fell into two buckets: public and private. In 2014, we will see specialist cloud providers start to emerge, targeting specific markets such as local governments, military and vertical markets like finance, telecoms and retail. We’ll also see application-specific cloud-based models, for example, cloud-computing for CPU performance, for high I/O needs, graphic processing etc.

I think we’ll also start to see consolidation in the market driven by the big players changing their business models, with some stepping up efforts to generate more revenue from offering cloud computing services. I think this will mean smaller providers will struggle to keep up with the performance developments and investment needed to compete in what is becoming a utility-based cloud environment. Essentially if they cannot do Infrastructure-as-a-Service then their time is limited. Earlier this year, we saw a company go to the wall very suddenly, leaving its customers empty handed. This was a huge lesson for the whole industry. When picking a hosting provider, customers need to know that the company can provide the services and capacity they need not just now but also in the future.

2. 2014: The year for software innovation
This year we saw a huge amount of innovation and developments in the technology space with Big Data, cloud, wearable tech etc., but 2014 will be spent getting our heads around the technology that is already out there.

What we will see in 2014, is this existing technology drive new software development, processes and tools. The conversation will move from what new devices there are to how do we use them, translating to more innovation with software.

Platform-as-a-Service is currently much over-hyped, and I see this continuing as industry continues to look to PaaS to aid better development. However, this is where DevOps will come in as a much better way to aid development, rather than resorting to the hype of PaaS.

3. Consolidation of the Big Data market
In 2014 we will see the conversation move from trying to define Big Data, to talking about how businesses can actually integrate it into their processes and start to see real commercial value from it.

Gartner plotted Big Data at the top of its “Peak of Inflated Expectations” on its emerging technologies hype cycle for 2013 which suggests a tough year ahead, but I have a slightly more optimistic outlook. Driven by the availability of high performance cloud computing platforms, major tech vendors will take the time and complexity out of Big Data implementations by consolidating disparate Big Data technologies. This is, in particular, driven by a consolidation of NOSQL technologies. But, this will in turn put pressure on businesses and developers in terms of needing to develop new skillsets.
The end result will be that 2014 will usher in new ecosystems of Big Data applications that will deliver clear business value and ROI. Further, we’re already seeing a shake-up and new technologies from the data warehousing and analytics companies like Informatica, IBM, Terradata, Oracle etc and this will become even more heightened as the clamour for Big Data insight to deliver ROI grows.

2014 may not be the year Big Data delivers but it should be the year it matures.

4. Security gets investment
There’s a tacit agreement that many traditional security solutions just aren’t cutting it in our ever changing world of technology innovation. The NSA revelations and general scaremongering does not drive the market away from outsourcing, or from US companies, it drives them into wanting to do more on security, demanding more for their providers. 2014 will see continued investment in new security technologies especially around encryption. This will undoubtedly result in better security in the cloud and address some of those lingering doubts around the security of cloud-based platforms and systems.

5. DevOps becomes front of mind for businesses
Businesses have never been more interested in DevOps and this is set to continue into 2014. Everyone wants to know how to be better at delivery and how to be more efficient and optimised on cloud. The software market is becoming more and more like the FMCG sector with customers and consumers demanding a much faster time to market for software applications and updates. This means that DevOps becomes an important business process with developers and IT departments needing to work more closely than ever before, breaking down traditional barriers for a smooth, frictionless process. As a result, we’ll see more DevOps technologies come onto the market and the cloud of course will play a major part in the DevOps toolkit, enabling the capacity and agility needed for continuous deployment. Again, the coming of age of DevOps will require a huge cultural change too as the two roles become more integrated.