Riverbed Plays the Soothsayer

Puts a roundup of IT Trends in 2015 & Predictions for 2016; The hybrid enterprise is here to stay; RIP – the Branch Router

In 2015, enterprise IT teams went through one of the biggest transitions in a decade as enterprises go hybrid and implement software-defined networks. In order for enterprises to gain better visibility, optimization and control while focusing on solving business performance challenges, Riverbed Technology has provided the following list of 2015 trends and predictions that will impact IT organizations in 2016.

Trends for 2015:

• IT efficiencies in the data center such as hyper-convergence, software-defined data centers, automation and orchestration were adopted by main stream enterprises. Resulting in cost efficiencies, greater span and control, and faster data center operations.
• IT continued to grow in importance as CIOs found ways to transform agility requirements to fulfill business line demands.
• Business silos began converging into DevOps movements creating tighter alignment between IT and the line of business.
• IT complexity including security, agility and performance demands caused a tipping point in 2015, resulting in IT leveraging more automation solutions across the network.

Predictions for 2016:

• CIOs seek more control: The dramatic increase in network complexity, virtualization, and new, highly distributed application architectures, coupled with the reliance on applications for business, demands a radical new approach to how IT operations look at their network and application performance infrastructure. CIOs will look to leverage more technologies that focus on automation, intelligence and orchestration in a move to try to control the distributed network that they have been unable to control.
• Enterprises still use hybrid but increase cloud usage: More and more IT assets will be pushed into the cloud, and more users will work outside premises. We’ll see more companies operate exclusively in the cloud, but enterprises will continue to leverage the hybrid cloud model with overall cloud usage increasing across the network.
• CIOs focused on KPIs: CIOs will focus on KPIs to align IT to the needs of the business. For example, CIOs will need to know how their apps are being delivered 24-hours a day. They will need to know performance and user experience. Otherwise, CIOs will have a difficult time defending the IT organization as more than a cost center.
• Visibility ensures greater trust: As more and more organizations move to the cloud for day-to-day operations, visibility across the public, private and hybrid clouds will become critical. CIOs will leverage solutions that provide greater visibility into performance, security and end-user experience for applications. Greater visibility will lead to more trust in IT and alignment to business goals.
• RIP Router: The future of networking is not a router, but rather a software-defined approach to applications. IT teams will begin implementing complete solutions for visibility, optimization and control in order to move to a software-defined enterprise with more agility to take full advantage of cloud, SaaS, hybrid and SD-WAN options.