While no organization should make its technology decisions simply based on trends, no organization can afford to ignore technology trends, either. Did your business plan to adopt any of these trends this year? How are you doing with those plans?

Trend 1: Cloud Adoption and Everything As A Service

There’s no doubt the biggest tech trend in recent years is the rise of cloud services. The first use of cloud in many businesses was “shadow IT” usage of cloud file sharing services, but cloud is now a core element of many technology strategies.

There are many decisions to be made, including how to use cloud. Choices include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS), along with many other specialized offerings including Desktop as a Service (DaaS), Database as a Service (DBaaS), and Identity Management as a Service (IDaaS).

Along with deciding how to leverage cloud services, companies need to decide whether to use public cloud, build their own private cloud, or integrate them in a hybrid cloud.

Despite these many decisions cloud adoption continues to grow, with companies seeking out the benefits of reduced cost, easier management, and increased agility.

Trend 2: Big Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence

Companies collect more data than ever now and are using big data technology to store and manage it, while analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning help them find the value in that data.

Many companies are leveraging cloud to support their big data and analytics projects. The cloud provides scalable storage that easily grows to provide the capacity needed for big data. Cloud also allows you to spin up environments to run analytics jobs, and cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure offer instances tailored to Hadoop, Spark, and other popular big data analytics tools. The platforms also offer artificial intelligence and machine learning support.

Trend 3: Digitizing the Enterprise

One of the reasons big data is so important to companies now is that data isn’t just a byproduct of operational processes. Data now is important input into decisions regarding product development; in some cases, data is the product. The most competitive companies collect data everywhere, including from connected Internet of Things devices, and store that data so it’s scalable, accessible, and usable.

Trend 4: Automation

Digitization adds to the volume of data and applications, with growth and rapid changes that can’t be managed manually. The only way to support a digital enterprise is digitally, meaning automation and DevOps to speed the process from idea to deployment. With automation and DevOps, digital ideas can be implemented and deployed daily or even more often, and any problems are replaced by a new production release without breaking the process.

Trend 5: Webscale IT

The giant IT companies of today aren’t giant just in terms of customer base; they’re giant in terms of their IT infrastructure. Yet despite their massive server farms, they’re able to quickly scale and respond to change—in fact, some of these companies, like Amazon and Google, enable customer agility through their cloud platforms. For companies that can’t or don’t want to use cloud, achieving the same webscale IT flexibility within their own data center can mean a shift to hyperconverged, commodity infrastructure.

Leveraging Trends for Business Success

The value in these trends isn’t from following the crowd. It’s about applying the right technology the right way to support your IT and business goals. That success starts from understanding the challenges your IT infrastructure currently faces and implementing a strategic plan to address them.

Prescient Solutions has been following the IT trends and helping Chicagoland businesses successfully deploy and manage technology for more than 20 years. Contact us for a free infrastructure assessment or to discuss how this year’s technology trends can help your business trend towards success.