Member Article

6 Tech Trends Set to Impact Enterprise Applications in 2018

Dave Ricketts, Head of Sales and Marketing at Six Degrees

It is that time of year again where IT experts take a look back at the past year and look towards what the next one will bring in the way of trends. There are a few exciting technology areas that are set to revolutionise how enterprise applications are hosted, delivered and maintained in the future. 2018 is looking to be a pivotal year for many technologies currently in use for consumer applications, which will naturally also impact enterprise applications.

Edge Computing

Edge computing will change how enterprise applications are delivered forever by bringing demanding applications closer to where the users are within a distributed cloud model. As users become more application-aware from using sophisticated consumer applications in their home life, their expectations for work applications will naturally become higher. To meet these expectations, businesses can deliver increased speed and bandwidth by housing applications closer to users through edge computing technology which will enhance the user experience – this is going to be a dominant topic in 2018.

Internet of Things

Everyone’s talking about IoT and its impact on the enterprise, but it has not fully impacted enterprise application delivery and usage yet. In the industrial and manufacturing sectors, sensors are already heavily integrated into production lines and machinery, but how IoT sensors start to be integrated into CRM applications, business analytics tools and HR software it yet to be seen.

Similarly, how can IoT technology further change how we use enterprise applications? 2018 is likely to see IoT usage increase in warehouse management and remote workforces – specifically, inputting data into mobile IoT devices that is later integrated with central ERP and data management systems back in the office.

Blockchain

Blockchain is already being used for far more than just financial needs – in law, it is being used to create contracts on the fly and web services are using it to authenticate user access.

Some cloud providers are starting to integrate blockchain technologies into their security layers, and the technology industry can expect to see this increase in the future as a simple way to authenticate users; especially with remote workers joining from locations across the world.

It will also be interesting to see how blockchain and bitcoin technology start being integrated into cloud billing systems.

Security

The way IT security is perceived and managed will change in 2018. As mentioned, blockchain is already being integrated into security products and there is more of a focus on moving it to the end user device. Security will focus on protecting users logging on across the globe, whilst still giving them the flexibility to use web applications and mobile devices without heavy restrictions.

Security in 2018 has to be delivered differently to the previous method of protecting a central cloud environment for enterprise applications – rather securing a distributed cloud network, across lots of different locations, and lots of different device types. The focus for businesses will switch, with more emphasis on user behaviour and less on the actual software or product - how users can be more security-aware and manage social engineering and phishing ploys.

Brexit

In 2018, we will start to demystify concerns and questions on how Brexit will impact IT investments. Many organisations have been cautious about making big investments or changes to their environment until there is more clarity around Brexit. The subject of Brexit has also had an impact on organisations’ confidence about hosting services in particular locations; will Brexit mean the need to move services into the UK, or will it not impact data sovereignty requirements for central applications? For many companies, the answer still isn’t clear.

Public Cloud for enterprise apps

2018 will see many more public cloud environments designed specifically for hosting complex enterprise applications with demanding workloads and complicated user access policies. Companies will become more confident about putting their central applications into the cloud, and solutions such as Azure stack will mean companies can get the best of both worlds; hosting central applications locally and sharing resources with the public cloud. These hybrid models will definitely make the move over to true public cloud providers much easier for businesses looking to host ERP applications externally.

Only time will tell – let’s check back at the end of 2018 to see how these trends develop.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Six Degrees News .