I recently had the pleasure of attending the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies (IOCS) Conference. Like most events in 2020, this event was virtual and brought together infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders from across the world together to redefine, reassess, and prepare for what normal might be in the near future. Here are some of the major takeaways from my experience at this four-day event.
Takeaway #1: The future of IT monitoring and observability is changing, and as such, your monitoring strategy needs to evolve
- The future state of IT operations monitoring has shifted to a unified, agile, holistic, intelligent, and business-focused approach.
- The role in the IT monitoring landscape is no longer about data collection, but more about connecting the data source to analysis and creating value from these data sources.
- It is all about the business! There needs to be a focus shift from just monitoring key IT metrics to monitoring the business performance and business outcomes.
- Gartner went on to outline five steps to evolve your monitoring strategy.
Takeaway #2: It is never too late to build a living cloud strategy document if you haven’t already
- Establish a cloud strategy in the context of your overall business strategy.
- A cloud strategy needs to involve key stakeholders across the enterprise, including business units.
- Distributed cloud is the next frontier of cloud computing. Enterprises should consider including distributed cloud solutions into their current cloud strategy.
Takeaway #3: COVID-19 has influenced a majority of the trends that I&O leaders will be coming to terms with in the next couple of years
Here are the OP emerging trends anticipated in 2021:
- Remote working has changed the workplace and forced companies to rethink their staffing strategy.
- Core Modernization should be looked at as a continuous process as opposed to being viewed as a one-time project. 2020 has shown that enterprises need to coordinate infrastructures on-and off-premises that minimize legacy nuisance.
- The evolution of I&O hirings focusing on roles to skills will continue as organizations adapt to the new business environment. Since 2018, 43% of the new heads of I&O came into the role from outside the I&O function. This rate is expected to continue.
Takeaway #4: Organizations are refocusing on growth and cost management due to the pandemic
- Enterprises are cutting expenditure by eliminating cost increased investments in automation and its implementation as an approach to achieve cost-optimization.
- The impact of COVID-19 has made I&O leaders analyze existing tools. They are identifying ways to consolidate tools when possible while shifting spending to innovate and align with business values.
Takeaway #5: More interesting predictions
It wouldn’t be a Gartner event without some bold predictions! Here are some of the predictions I found most interesting at the event:
- By 2022, more than 75% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production, which is a significant increase from fewer than 30% today.
- By 2023, 40% of infrastructure and operations (I&O) teams in large enterprises will use AI-augmented automation, resulting in higher IT productivity, agility, and scalability.
- By 2023, 40% of I&O leaders will implement at least one of the hybrid cloud architectures, from 10% in 2019.
- By 2025, more than 85% of the global organizations will be running containerized applications in production, which is a significant increase from fewer than 35% in 2019.
- By 2025, 90% of the global enterprises will have an automation architect, up from less than 20% today.
Whether your company is building out your cloud strategy or you are in the advanced stages, 2020 has awoken enterprises to advance their cloud strategy. Organizations are looking to automate in order to lower costs and improve efficiency as we prepare for what the new normal in 2021 looks like.
