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Gartner - Ten Technologies to Watch
The Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Management Summit 2009 kicked off with a bang this morning, literally. Around 5am this morning, we were all woken up by a violent thunderstorm that lit the sky for miles around. Better than a wake-up call. (Side note: I almost fell out of the very odd "princess and the pea" setup I have for a bed; the beds here are so high that they offered me a footstool to get in it.)
So the conference itself started off with Dave Cappuccio talking about the Top 10 Technologies that we should all be watching:
1) Virtualization
2) Data Deluge
3) Energy & Green IT
4) Consumerization & Social Networks
5) Unified Communications
6) Complex Resource Tracking
7) Mobile & Wireless
'8) System Density
9) Mashups & Portals
10) Cloud Computing
1) Virtualization:
This is not a technology issue but an energy issue: on the typical x86 server, 65% of it is doing nothing (draws power but with low utilization). Compare this to mainframes which on average are runnning at 85-90% utilization; mainframes are expensive and there's a lot more cost justification that has to happen. x86 seems "cheap" in comparison to a mainframe, but what about power costs?
2) Data Deluge
650% growth in 5 years; 80% will be unstructured! Growth is not the problem - unstructured is the issue. More data will be generated this year than in the previous 5000 years (Over 40 exabytes). Key new storage technologies in the pipeline:
Thin provisioning (IT conditioned to over-allocate - utilization was not the issue, now it is)
Data deduplication
Automated tiering
HSM (hierarchical storage management) principles
Virtual tape
3) Energy & Green IT
"Green is money." Need the monitoring capabilities to understand energy draw in data center - now and how this hopefully is improving over time: New KPIs based on efficiency. Push to virtualize; need to monitor at the granular level. DCP (data center performance index) = Useful work/Total Facility Power
All those 15K rpm drives are sucking down gobs of electricity for each drive so we have to maximize their utilization. Watch-out: EU and EPA metrics are coming!
4) Consumerization and Social Software
Twitter was the fastest-growing social network in 2008 growing 1,382%. 62% of new users are between 39 and 51. That's data about your company that's going on that you may not know about.
Not a problem but an opportunity. Consumerization is an attitude not just the use of tech. Generational - need to participate, contribute and be part of a community. Technology examples: Wireless, smartphones, instant and text messaging, social networks
5) Unified Communications
# of text messages sent in the last 24 hours exceeded the total population of the planet (more than 6,700,000,000)
UC is: tightly integrated communications applications - email, wireless, voip, mobility, pbx, presence, im, text/sms, etc. The unified communications "dream" would be everything tied together instead of traditional vertical (IT) entities. Critical time frame - not for a couple of years, 2011-13
6) Complex Resource tracking
Back to energy - New KPIs based on power. Vendors good at monitoring performance of systems - but IT is not the base infrastructure. IT depends on physical facilities/infrastructure, which is what also needs to be monitored - from energy to airflow to temperature. The EPA is going to come out with a Data Center efficiency rating. The goal is to get to a single view across all infrastructure, down to the facilities level, something that no single product currently addresses.
7) Mobile & Wireless
Thousands of new apps coming online.
Mobile apps need new servers for delivery
App delivery complexity
Immature management tools
Next target for virtualization
'8) System Density
At current pricing, opex (energy costs for one) to support a single x86 server exceeds cost of that server within 3 years.
$105,000 energy cost per year (single rack of servers)
Last year, Gartner customers were talking about building new data centers. This year - plans put on hold. Gartner sees companies striving to get to the best density and utilization levels - "scaling up" instead of "scaling out."
9) Mashups and Enterprise Portals
Real business usage instead of stuck in the corner
10) Cloud Computing
Definition (after much internal Gartner debate):
a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to customers using Internet technologies
About the Author David Link is president and CEO of ScienceLogic. He and his partners built a thriving company from the ground up by focusing on delivering "products that just work" to the underserved IT infrastructure management marketplace. He has held senior management and corporate officer positions at large public companies.
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