Happy new year and welcome to 2015!
This time of year has most people reflecting on the past and predicting the future. Some may hope to stay more on top of technology as a New Year’s Resolution. Here is my list of top technology topics that will matter in 2015. There are lots of carry-overs from 2014 but some have just begun to take-off.
Security only continues to gain importance after credit card breaches, private information shared, the Sony hack, and other notable security incidents of 2014. Improving endpoint protection is long overdue especially with the rise of CryptoLocker/CryptoWall but the whole defense-in-depth strategy needs to be properly implemented for organizations. Understanding and prioritizing security objectives while be an important task in 2015. Start brushing up on Kali Linux and other tools in order to see your resources from an attacker’s perspective.
Windows 10 and the next Windows Server will be big topics in 2015 as enterprises prepare to leapfrog Windows 8.x and upgrade from Windows 7. Learning from Windows 8 with a more subtle adaptation from Windows 7 should makes Windows 10 better for the consumer and enterprise. Anybody that has to use Server 2012 also knows that the Server can only improve (though 2012 R2 was already a big step up).
I hear 2015 will be the year of the Linux Desktop but more seriously Debian/Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS are solid technologies for enterprises. Particularly with recent major upgrades and embracing industry-changing features like containers such as Docker, Linux has a steady future ahead of it.
Scripting and automation will continue to be on the rise in 2015 as processes provide more hooks and means to interface scheduled tasks based on a wide variety of triggers. Interfacing systems is nothing new but the capabilities could be. Utilizing PowerShell or other languages will be a requirement of moving beyond surviving to thriving in 2015.
DevOps is breaking down silos and integrating software development with the rest of IT so the infrastructure is smarter and test environments mirror production. The Cloud enables this transition and with configuration automation software like Puppet, Chef, Ansible, or Salt, it can greatly improve the efficiency of a technical team. Repositories like Github are also improving communication within developers and improving development practices.
Virtualization and VDI will continue to gain adoption with both VMware and Hyper-V. This is only one of the two topics that are actually shrinking the size of the in-house datacenter, with the other being “the Cloud”.
Outsourcing and the Cloud Wars has Amazon AWS, Google, Microsoft, and others slashing their prices to try to gain customers. Virtual servers can be hosted in the cloud with greater ability to scale benefiting from a scales of economy. Outsourced email, software, and desktops reduce the actual on-premise chores but increase the need for technical management and interfacing with third-party providers.
The Internet of Things and Wearables will only become more prevalent as more “smart devices” provide an increasing number of sensors to provide environmental feedback across the web. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and tons of other companies are banking on wearables continuing their adoption. Similarly, home automation brings smart thermostats and smoke alarms as well as remote control light switches or outlets and any number of other devices from around your house to be accessible from your phone or anywhere else on the go. Security is another important aspect in this topic.
Big Data is assigned the task of figuring out what to make of and do about all of the information that is being gathered through all our transactions and all of these sensors. Hortonworks, a Hadoop solutions provider, went public in 2014 which shows the market is maturing in its demand to harness Big Data. Big Data also leads to questions about improving storage
Wireless should see steady adoption of faster speeds with 802.11ac. Unless something changes and mobile data increases capacity or decreases prices, wireless will be the key to getting more done on the go.
Open-source projects used to be scoffed at as under-supported software while enterprises would need to go with expensive, commercial alternatives. Projects like WordPress, OpenStack, Snort, Hadoop, Docker, and NoSQL are just a small sample of every day open source products making the world turn.
Hit or miss? Is one project already dead? Did I leave something out? Let me know what you think of the list on social media.