Dimension Data, the global ICT solutions and services provider, recently published its top IT predictions for 2017, and the focus on digital is set to remain the key trend in the industry for the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
Dimension Data\u2019s chief technology officer, Ettienne Reinecke says digital is about building truly customer-centric business models on IT including the network, data centre, applications, and other infrastructure – which may be on-premise, or cloud-based.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, there\u2019s no such thing as a digital strategy \u2013 just strategy in a digital world. And while the digital age is creating a degree of uncertainty for some organisations, it\u2019s also opening the doors to exciting possibilities and ushering in an era of infinite potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reinecke cited ownership and access to data \u2013 and metadata \u2013 as a key theme. \u201cIn the year ahead, control and ownership of data and metadata will emerge as a point of discussion – and indeed contention. That\u2019s because data and metadata are the \u2018gold dust\u2019 that allow organisations to glean rich insights about customer behaviour. In addition, metadata allows organisations to identify specific behavioural patterns, derive business intelligence, and make informed business decisions.”<\/p>\n
As a result, organisations are becoming increasingly protective of their metadata, and wary of who has access to it. “Organisations don\u2019t just want ownership and control of their data for compliance reasons: they want it to perform analytics. We expect that this will trigger some interesting discussions between businesses and their cloud providers,”\u00a0Reinecke said.<\/p>\n
For example, where are the boundaries with respect to ownership, especially around metadata. We foresee this issue resulting in a bit of \u2018push and pull\u2019 among the various parties.”<\/p>\n
Other IT trends that Dimension Data predicts will make their mark in 2017 include:<\/p>\n
Cybercrime is big business. Over the last few years, cybercriminals have been re-investing much of the ill-gotten gains into developing more sophisticated capabilities, using more advanced technologies. Despite ongoing innovation in the cybersecurity industry, much of the effort remains reactive. Cybersecurity will become more predictive, rather than proactive.<\/p>\n
A new generation is starting to show up at work, and they\u2019re not millennials, or even Gen Z: they\u2019re machines.\u00a0 And it won\u2019t be much longer before holographics, augmented reality, and virtual reality begin to move from B2C into B2B. Also, over the next two to three years these technologies will drive a fundamental transformation of the workspace.<\/p>\n
IoT will deliver on the promise of big data. Increasingly, big data projects are going through multiple updates in a single year \u2013 and the Internet of Things (IoT) is largely the reason.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because IoT makes it possible to examine specific patterns that deliver specific business outcomes, and this has to increasingly be done in realtime. This will drive a healthier investment, and faster return in big data projects.<\/p>\n
In 2017 we\u2019ll see more widespread adoption of containers, but the transition to a fully containerised world will take few more years. In addition, we\u2019ll see increasing adoption of network function virtualisation (NFV) when cloud-enabling existing networks, and for new networks to be architected with hybrid cloud in mind.<\/p>\n