As is the tradition at Sentia, we like to wrap up the year by looking forward to emerging trends and highlight those that could have a significant impact for our customers.
From a general perspective, 2017 was a great year for Canada in many ways. Did you know that we were ranked the 2nd in the annual “Best Countries” survey from the U.S. News & World Report? The survey evaluated 80 countries in a variety of categories including economic influence, citizenship and quality of life.
On a different note, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations continue to get drawn out. Meeting U.S. demands have proven very challenging and more negotiations will continue in the first quarter of 2018. Some businesses are facing insecurity, but some are facing these challenges head on and thinking out of the box to secure new opportunities.
From an IT Security standpoint, if you assess recent IT security trends, the news is not so positive (unless you’re a professional cybercriminal of course!).
A new year brings a clear slate
With a new year comes a new chance for success. As a Solution provider, we strive to improve on the year before, make changes for the better and continue to provide the best advice to improve your IT that will impact your business in a positive way.
Let’s take a look at some of the trends for 2018 from Gartner, Forrester that we feel can bring change to your organization.
Gartner - Strategic Technology Trends for 2018
Two of the top trends from Gartner we feel are significant for our customers are:
1) Securing your digital business with adaptive risk and trust assessment (CARTA)
2) Implementing Edge Computing and Cloud together
Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust
The intelligent digital mesh and related digital technology platforms and application architectures create an ever-more-complex world for security.
The continuing evolution of the "hacker industry" and its use of increasingly sophisticated tools — including the same advanced technologies available to enterprises — significantly raise the threat potential. Relying on perimeter defense and static rule-based security is inadequate and outdated.
This is especially true as organizations use more mobile devices, cloud-based services, and open APIs for customers and partners to create business ecosystems. IT leaders must focus on detecting and responding to threats, as well as more traditional measures, such as blocking, to prevent attacks and other abuses.
At the same time, digital business will require more advanced access protection when systems and information are opened up to the digital mesh. Security and risk management leaders must adopt a continuous adaptive risk and trust assessment (CARTA) strategic approach.
This is vital to securely enable access to digital business initiatives in a world of advanced, targeted attacks. It will enable real-time, risk- and trust-based decision making with adaptive responses. Read more.
Cloud to the Edge
Edge computing describes a computing topology in which information processing and content collection and delivery are placed closer to the sources and sinks of this information. The objective here is to keep the traffic and processing local with the goal of reducing traffic and latency.
While many view cloud and edge as competing approaches, cloud is a style of computing where elastically scalable technology capabilities are delivered as a service and does not inherently mandate a centralized model.
"When used as complementary concepts, cloud can be the style of computing used to create a service-oriented model and a centralized control and coordination structure with edge being used as a delivery style allowing for disconnected or distributed process execution of aspects of the cloud service," said Mr. Cearley. Read more
In their new report, “The Top 10 Technology Trends to Watch: 2018 To 2020 - Ten Trends Will Help You Maximize the Value of Business Technology”. Forrester Research analysts Brian Hopkins, Bobby Cameron, Ted Schadler and Rusty Warner offer their picks on the technology and business trends that will most shape the IT landscape.
Here are the three top trends from Forrester Research we have picked for you:
- Automated Security Intelligence and Breach Response Unshackle Security & Risk (S&R)
- Contextual Privacy Boosts Brand Value
- The Public Cloud Accelerates Business Innovation
Automated Security Intelligence and Breach Response Unshackle Security & Risk (S&R)
“The era of manual risk and security management is ending,” the authors say. “Having long shied away from automation, security and risk (S&R) pros are just starting to embrace it to speed detection and response. Automated remediation is likely to follow.
Security teams struggle with investigating incidents and responding to threats quickly. Security automation and orchestration (SAO) promises to transform the S&R role, unshackling the chief information security officer’s team from repetitive, manual tasks and giving analysts more time for higher-value work.” Read more
Contextual Privacy Boosts Brand Value
“The seemingly never-ending news of data breaches and unauthorized uses of personally identifiable information leads to growing customer concerns about their privacy, making them hesitate to use digital tools from risky companies,” the authors say. “To drive competitive differentiation and business growth, firms must proactively address customer data management and security technologies that enable contextual privacy. But contextual privacy goes well beyond technology capabilities; it is a business practice in which the collection and use of personal data is consensual, within a mutually agreed-upon context, for a mutually agreed-upon purpose. Understanding that no firm owns consumer data and that we merely have the right to use it fuels data-centric security approaches.” Read more
The Public Cloud Accelerates Business Innovation
“The public cloud is a juggernaut that is reinventing computing and the high-tech industry itself,” Forrester Research authors conclude. “The relentless pace of technology and service innovation from mega-cloud providers like AWS, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce means that business innovation is just an API call away.
We’ve reached the tipping point for public cloud: Most companies won’t be able to build out a data center to match cloud’s public capabilities or efficiency. Even 30-year IT veterans are increasingly willing to shutter their data centers. CIOs will be forced to move to the public cloud for most applications.” Read more
Deloitte and the Symphonic Enterprise
As a teaser to our next blog, I will take you on Deloitte’s journey into a vision for redefining IT and business. Deloitte presents a different way of looking at today’s challenges. They will walk us through how disruptive technologies can work together to achieve larger strategic and operational goals.
In closing, we want to thank each and every one of our clients, partners and team for an exceptional year. Our success would not be possible without you! May you relax, rejoice and spend quality time with those close to you during the holiday season.
Chris West
Director of Sales & Marketing
Sentia