by Ralph Eck | Nov 20, 2013
The world of technology is a continually and rapidly advancing field and the IT professional must stay on their toes if they hope to keep pace with all these changes. Just when it seems like technology cannot possible advance any faster, it seems to do just that. The year 2013 has seen a wealth of technological change and has made the focus of the IT professional change course a bit. What follows are just seven of the biggest trends in information technology right now.
1. Continued Adoption of the Cloud by Business Large and Small
Many large businesses have already migrated to cloud-based server and storage solutions. These services are becoming more scalable and affordable, making them an attractive solution for small business migration over the coming year.
2. Increased Focus on Disaster Recovery System
Natural disasters in recent years have shown that there are vulnerabilities that need to be addressed. Businesses with only regionally-based services found themselves unable to recover data, their systems offline for extended periods of time, and so on, as a result of a recent hurricane. This further illustrates the need for remote storage and server solutions that remain online no matter what. Many businesses are switching to remote clouds and creating contingency plans.
3. The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things, or the idea of a future where pretty much everything that is consumed within our society is outfitted with monitoring and tracking devices for increased efficiency is quickly becoming a reality. Remote sensing and data collection technology continues to advance and artificial intelligence and learning machines are advancing to keep pace and process all this new data.
4. The Rise of Big Data
Big Data, as the name implies, refers to databases that hold massive amounts of information. Development in programs that can more efficiency parse and process large amounts of data are key areas of focus for the IT professional over the coming years.
5. “Mobile First” Focus of Development
Mobile technologies are rapidly overtaking laptops and personal computers as the primary means by which people surf the web. This is leading to an increased focus on “mobile first” development. This is a type of web development that starts with mobile-based solutions as the starting point, with the ability to scale the solutions up to other devices. Responsive web design is continuing to gain a foothold in the web development community.
6. Continued Emphasis on Cyber Security
As we become more and more web dependent, IT professionals must continue to focus on ways to keep the web as safe and secure as possible. New mobile technologies and sophisticated software systems have highlighted vulnerabilities in security that need to be addressed with better security solutions for the changing landscape of the Internet.
7. Analytics Accessibility and Usability
We continue to gather and gain access to more data. More information can be a good thing, or it can be overwhelming. Analytics software that helps to make sense of large amounts of information are becoming more important. The IT professional must be able to assess the streams of data effectively and efficiently. Programmers and developers are also beginning to make analytics tools more accessible and easy to use, to help expand the reach of data analysis tools to less-than-savvy users.
With an increased focus on mobile-based technologies and application solutions, as well as the increased virtualization of many aspects of our daily lives, the IT professional will see a greater emphasis on responsive and dynamic design. These trends seek to make technology more accessible, as well as to utilize new means of tracking and data management to help streamline, better secure and manage large scale data systems.
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