Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top ten technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organisations in 2008.
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
"Companies should factor these technologies into their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years," said David Cearley, Gartner Symposium vice-president for information technology. "Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology. In other cases it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test/pilot or more aggressively adopt/deploy the technology. The important thing is to ask the question and proactively plan."
The top ten strategic technologies for 2008 include:
1. Green IT. The focus of Green IT that came to the forefront in 2007 will accelerate and expand in 2008. Consider potential regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the impact on power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Some companies are emphasising their social responsibility behaviour, which might result in vendor preferences and policies that affect IT decisions. Scheduling decisions for workloads on servers will begin to consider power efficiency as a key placement attribute.
2. Unified Communications. Today, 20 per cent of the installed base with private branch exchange (PBX) has migrated to IP telephony, but more than 80 per cent are already doing trials of some form. Gartner analysts expect the next three years to be the point at which the majority of companies implement this, the first major change in voice communications since the digital PBX and cellular phone changes in the 1970s and 1980s.
3. Business Process Modeling. Top-level process services must be defined jointly by a set of roles (which include enterprise architects, senior developers, process architects and/or process analysts). Some of those roles sit in a service oriented architecture centre of excellence, some in a process centre of excellence and some in both. The strategic imperative for 2008 is to bring these groups together. Gartner expects BPM suites to fill a critical role as a complement to software oriented architecture (SOA) development.
4. Metadata Management. Through 2010, organisations implementing both customer data integration and product integration and product information management will link these master data management initiatives as part of an overall enterprise information management (EIM) strategy. Metadata management is a critical part of a company’s information infrastructure. It enables optimisation, abstraction and semantic reconciliation of metadata to support reuse, consistency, integrity and shareability. Metadata management also extends into SOA projects with service registries and application development repositories. Metadata also plays a role in operations management with configuration management database (CMDB) initiatives.
5. Virtualisation 2.0. Virtualisation technologies can improve IT resource utilisation and increase the flexibility needed to adapt to changing requirements and workloads. However, by themselves, virtualisation technologies are simply enablers that help broader improvements in infrastructure cost reduction, flexibility and resiliency. With the addition of automation technologies – with service-level, policy-based active management – resource efficiency can improve dramatically, flexibility can become automatic based on requirements, and services can be managed holistically, ensuring high levels of resiliency. Virtualisation plus service-level, policy-based automation constitutes a real-time infrastructure (RTI).
6. Mashup & Composite Apps. By 2010, web mashups will be the dominant model (80 per cent) for the creation of composite enterprise applications. Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.
7. Web Platform & Web Oriented Architecture (WOA). Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming a viable option in more markets and companies must evaluate where service based delivery may provide value in 2008-2010. Meanwhile web platforms are emerging which provide service-based access to infrastructure services, information, applications, and business processes through Web based "cloud computing" environments. Companies must also look beyond SaaS to examine how Web platforms will impact their business in three to five years.
8. Computing Fabric. A computing fabric is the evolution of server design beyond the interim stage, blade servers, that exists today. The next step in this progression is the introduction of technology to allow several blades to be merged operationally over the fabric, operating as a larger single system image that is the sum of the components from those blades. The fabric-based server of the future will treat memory, processors, and I/O cards as components in a pool, combining and recombining them into particular arrangements to suits the owner’s needs. For example a large server can be created by combining 32 processors and a number of memory modules from the pool, operating together over the fabric to appear to an operating system as a single fixed server.
9. Real World Web. The term "real world web" is informal, referring to places where information from the web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. It is used in real-time based on the real world situation, not prepared in advance for consumption at specific times or researched after the events have occurred. For example in navigation, a printed list of directions from the web does not react to changes, but a GPS navigation unit provides real-time directions that react to events and movements; the latter case is akin to the real-world web of augmented reality. Now is the time to seek out new applications, new revenue streams and improvements to business process that can come from augmenting the world at the right time, place or situation.
10. Social Software. Through 2010, the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, including start-ups, large vendors and traditional collaboration vendors. Expect significant consolidation as competitors strive to deliver robust Web 2.0 offerings to the enterprise. Nevertheless social software technologies will increasingly be brought into the enterprise to augment traditional collaboration.
"These ten opportunities should be considered in conjunction with many proven, fully-matured technologies, as we as others that did not make this list, but can provide value for many companies," said Carl Claunch, Gartner Symposium vice-president for server infrastructure and operations. "For example, real-time enterprises providing advanced devices for a mobile workforce will consider next-generation smartphones to be a key technology, in addition to the value that this list might offer."
About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Symposium/ITxpo is the industry’s largest and most strategic conference for senior IT and business professions. More than 6,000 senior business and IT strategists from virtually all major industries will gather to gain the latest advice on the biggest challenge: driving profits and performance with IT. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. They rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organisations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/symposium/eu.
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
"Companies should factor these technologies into their strategic planning process by asking key questions and making deliberate decisions about them during the next two years," said David Cearley, Gartner Symposium vice-president for information technology. "Sometimes the decision will be to do nothing with a particular technology. In other cases it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test/pilot or more aggressively adopt/deploy the technology. The important thing is to ask the question and proactively plan."
The top ten strategic technologies for 2008 include:
1. Green IT. The focus of Green IT that came to the forefront in 2007 will accelerate and expand in 2008. Consider potential regulations and have alternative plans for data center and capacity growth. Regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the impact on power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. Some companies are emphasising their social responsibility behaviour, which might result in vendor preferences and policies that affect IT decisions. Scheduling decisions for workloads on servers will begin to consider power efficiency as a key placement attribute.
2. Unified Communications. Today, 20 per cent of the installed base with private branch exchange (PBX) has migrated to IP telephony, but more than 80 per cent are already doing trials of some form. Gartner analysts expect the next three years to be the point at which the majority of companies implement this, the first major change in voice communications since the digital PBX and cellular phone changes in the 1970s and 1980s.
3. Business Process Modeling. Top-level process services must be defined jointly by a set of roles (which include enterprise architects, senior developers, process architects and/or process analysts). Some of those roles sit in a service oriented architecture centre of excellence, some in a process centre of excellence and some in both. The strategic imperative for 2008 is to bring these groups together. Gartner expects BPM suites to fill a critical role as a complement to software oriented architecture (SOA) development.
4. Metadata Management. Through 2010, organisations implementing both customer data integration and product integration and product information management will link these master data management initiatives as part of an overall enterprise information management (EIM) strategy. Metadata management is a critical part of a company’s information infrastructure. It enables optimisation, abstraction and semantic reconciliation of metadata to support reuse, consistency, integrity and shareability. Metadata management also extends into SOA projects with service registries and application development repositories. Metadata also plays a role in operations management with configuration management database (CMDB) initiatives.
5. Virtualisation 2.0. Virtualisation technologies can improve IT resource utilisation and increase the flexibility needed to adapt to changing requirements and workloads. However, by themselves, virtualisation technologies are simply enablers that help broader improvements in infrastructure cost reduction, flexibility and resiliency. With the addition of automation technologies – with service-level, policy-based active management – resource efficiency can improve dramatically, flexibility can become automatic based on requirements, and services can be managed holistically, ensuring high levels of resiliency. Virtualisation plus service-level, policy-based automation constitutes a real-time infrastructure (RTI).
6. Mashup & Composite Apps. By 2010, web mashups will be the dominant model (80 per cent) for the creation of composite enterprise applications. Mashup technologies will evolve significantly over the next five years, and application leaders must take this evolution into account when evaluating the impact of mashups and in formulating an enterprise mashup strategy.
7. Web Platform & Web Oriented Architecture (WOA). Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming a viable option in more markets and companies must evaluate where service based delivery may provide value in 2008-2010. Meanwhile web platforms are emerging which provide service-based access to infrastructure services, information, applications, and business processes through Web based "cloud computing" environments. Companies must also look beyond SaaS to examine how Web platforms will impact their business in three to five years.
8. Computing Fabric. A computing fabric is the evolution of server design beyond the interim stage, blade servers, that exists today. The next step in this progression is the introduction of technology to allow several blades to be merged operationally over the fabric, operating as a larger single system image that is the sum of the components from those blades. The fabric-based server of the future will treat memory, processors, and I/O cards as components in a pool, combining and recombining them into particular arrangements to suits the owner’s needs. For example a large server can be created by combining 32 processors and a number of memory modules from the pool, operating together over the fabric to appear to an operating system as a single fixed server.
9. Real World Web. The term "real world web" is informal, referring to places where information from the web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. It is used in real-time based on the real world situation, not prepared in advance for consumption at specific times or researched after the events have occurred. For example in navigation, a printed list of directions from the web does not react to changes, but a GPS navigation unit provides real-time directions that react to events and movements; the latter case is akin to the real-world web of augmented reality. Now is the time to seek out new applications, new revenue streams and improvements to business process that can come from augmenting the world at the right time, place or situation.
10. Social Software. Through 2010, the enterprise Web 2.0 product environment will experience considerable flux with continued product innovation and new entrants, including start-ups, large vendors and traditional collaboration vendors. Expect significant consolidation as competitors strive to deliver robust Web 2.0 offerings to the enterprise. Nevertheless social software technologies will increasingly be brought into the enterprise to augment traditional collaboration.
"These ten opportunities should be considered in conjunction with many proven, fully-matured technologies, as we as others that did not make this list, but can provide value for many companies," said Carl Claunch, Gartner Symposium vice-president for server infrastructure and operations. "For example, real-time enterprises providing advanced devices for a mobile workforce will consider next-generation smartphones to be a key technology, in addition to the value that this list might offer."
About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Symposium/ITxpo is the industry’s largest and most strategic conference for senior IT and business professions. More than 6,000 senior business and IT strategists from virtually all major industries will gather to gain the latest advice on the biggest challenge: driving profits and performance with IT. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. They rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organisations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com/symposium/eu.
