Aiming to help local CIOs and their businesses to excel in the era of digital era, local technology leaders offer suggestions when making investment decisions in the following top 10 enterprise IT areas in 2015. This article reviews the 10 major enterprise technology trends in Hong Kong during 2014 and it’s upcoming direction in 2015.
Applications and Cloud Computing
Cloud use blossomed in 2014 and sprang towards strategic initiatives, will it continue in 2015?
Bottom Line:
- Use of public cloud for development and testing became mainstream
- Hybrid cloud adoption grew to support strategic and complex initiatives
- Enterprises look for multiparty systems integration to counteract shadow IT
- Data security and user experience will become two big hurdles of cloud adoption
Enterprise use of public cloud for development and testing has moved mainstream
– Brian Groen, IBMHong Kong enterprises have started to embrace the concepts of “openness” and “freedom of choice” of cloud computing
– Peter Man, Red HatCompanies need new, intelligent solutions to help them adapt and defend themselves inside the network, not just at its edge
– Flora Yu, Microsoft
Data Networks and Infrastructure
Are Hong Kong enterprises ready to exploit SDN and NFV for network agility and flexibility?
Bottom Line:
- The increasing Hong Kong-China network traffic is driving enterprises to seek network flexibility
- Local enterprises will move from exploring to investing in SDN and NFV in 2015
- Speed is not limited to network traffic, but extended to IT operations
2015 customers should be making decisions on SDN and NFV
– Brian Hutson, JuniperBusiness agility is no longer an option but a necessity for organizations
– Garrick Ng, Cisco
Managed Services
How to leverage the blurring lines between cloud and IT services offerings?
Bottom Line:
- Hong Kong enterprises are demanding integrated cloud and managed services offering
- Cloud-based unified communications lead adoption
- Local vendors bring enhanced governance offerings, on-board services and
- multiple SLAs to differentiate from global cloud providers
Servers and Data Centers
What does the booming cloud market mean for enterprises that are spending on data center services and servers?
Bottom Line:
- Data center services get holistic
- Scalable and flexible data centers in demand
- Technology and personnel skills gap
- Fast and huge data volumes is the future
Security in relation to cloud computing continues to be at the top of enterprise customers’ agendas
– Alex Tam, EquinixAs end users continue to demand services instantaneously, organizations will have to make sure they are able to deliver
– Jihann Pedersen, Digital Reality
Security Technologies
How does predictive preventive and detective security help to fight against cyber threats in 2015?
Bottom Line:
- More intelligence is required in security products and policies
- IT leaders need to bridge the widening gap of security budgets and needs
- Cloud and mobility bring new perspectives in security
Corporations move at the speed of red tape, while hackers move at the speed of the Internet
– Michael Gazeley, Network BoxIT executives and CSOs are beginning to consider security not as a separate entity in the organization, but an integral team to help develop, automate and protect company resources
– Andy Leung, Juniper
Document and Content Management
What are the strategies to manage overflowing unstructured data?
Bottom Line:
- Cloud-based ECM brings flexibility
- Widespread use of social media has huge impact on ECM environment
- Be strategic about data management
Information governance and compliance are becoming more critical and will be one of the major challenges
– Sabharinath Balasubramanian, IDC
Big Data and Analytics
What it takes to harvest big data for fast, factual decisions?
Bottom Line:
- Data analysis that is fast, smart and mobile
- Democratization of the big data model
- Big data analytics reaches further to socially significant issues
True value of big data lies not just in having it, but in harvesting it for fast, fact-based decisions
– Wilfred Wah, SAS InstituteThe increasing dominance of large social platforms—such as Facebook—is a trend we expect to remain important across the region
– Barry Adams, ExperianCompanies are struggling to use this [unstructured machine] data in a meaningful and effective way
– Andy Ho, Splunk
Virtualization and Platform Management
Mobile office and BYOD call for total infrastructure virtualization, are you ready for that?
Bottom Line:
- IT to balance between services brokerage and resources control
- Biggest growth in desktop virtualization, hybrid cloud management, mobile cloud solutions
- Economy and political instability drives BCP growth
- IT spends were flat, but spending from LOB managers are emerging
Enterprise Mobility
Consumerization of mobile IT enters the second phase in 2014, how to prepare for the upcoming cloud Wi-Fi momentum?
Bottom Line:
- Security and Wi-Fi management were major mobility concerns in 2014
- Mobility is driving businesses to rethink analytics and ROI
- 2015 marks the beginning of next-generation mobile engagement
Scale doesn’t matter much. Client experience does.
– Alex Chan, IBM
Storage Technologies
Have you embraced storage optimization and prepared for the third platform transition?
Bottom Line:
- Traditional storage disk market is slowing down
- Big data initiatives are driving storage optimization investment
- For 2015, enterprises rely on solid IT foundation to adopt the third platform technologies
Flash technologies have experienced exponential growth compared with last year, banks and financial institutions being the key customers
– Gabriel Leung, EMCOne key emerging trend in 2014 was leveraging big data for greater business value
– Jimmie Chang, Gartner
Source: Technology Trendlines 2015