IT research agency Gartner has shared top 10 trends for Indian enterprises in infrastructure and operations in 2014.
Software-defined Networks
Gartner says unlike traditional networks where distributed forwarding and routing protocols manage topology based upon port and route metrics, the software-defined networks (SDN) controller (pair) is optimized for control of a data center (single, or hybrid cloud) and is the authoritative source for topology and policy enforcement.
Software-defined Storage
Software-defined storage (SDS) is the next step of the software defined data center. By employing SDS, organizations are able to separate and abstract storage elements, as well as combine storage elements and capabilities providing storage solutions/services. They have the potential to enable heterogeneous storage resources to create virtual pools of resources based on application requirements rather than the physical storage characteristics.
Hybrid Cloud Services
The primary benefit is flexibility of deployment, managed security and elasticity. This is contrasted from a cloud service that relies completely on another cloud service in a supply chain – in which the service is incomplete without the connection between the multiple implementations.
Integrated Systems
IT is demanding the end of hard and fixed intersections and boundaries. This unified fabric concept will take time to evolve through increased levels of automation, OS intelligence and management tools, but the evolution toward integrated systems is well underway.
Applications Acceleration
The consumerization of technology is creating more devices that organizations will need to support in order to reach out to customers and employees.
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things is not a technology, but a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as physical items such as consumer devices and physical assets are connected to the Internet.
Open Compute Project
Open Compute Project is designed to drive open design concepts where own design manufacturer (ODM) equipment will be much easier to interchange within a rack or data center environment. Over 50 vendors and end user companies are now actively adding value to the project.
Intelligent Data Centers
X86 virtualization is effectively the most important technology innovation behind the modernization of the data center. It heralds a sea-change in how IT leaders view the roles of compute, network and storage elements – from physical hardwired to logical and decoupled applications.
IT Demand
Pushing IT resources toward higher effective performance per kilowatt can have a twofold effect of improving energy consumption and extending the life of existing assets through increased throughput. The Power to Performance Effectiveness (PPE) metric is designed to capture this effect.
Organizational Entrenchment and Disruptions
The survival of the IT support organization rests on new IT service desk analyst skill sets and techniques that leverage the same consumer-based forces that accelerate business demand to their advantage.
