Gartner Predictions: IT Faces Nexus of Big Data, Cloud, Social, and Mobile
January 10, 2012
Grazed from Infoboom. Author: Karren Hanna.
New Gartner predictions for 2012 paints a picture of a changing landscape for IT organizations in business due to a convergence of "four IT forces" that will bring changes to the way IT manages its infrastructure. The analysis from Gartner Predicts 2012 describes the push stemming from the rapid evolution and convergence of cloud computing, social media, mobility, and big data as a force for creating a climate of IT change in 2012. But how IT pros attempt to control their new landscape is what is in question. Gartner states, "They need to ask themselves how they will handle the nexus–whether in individual pieces, or as a unified phenomenon all of itself."…
One can look at the individual pieces of the new landscape through the lens of small business. In 2012, it is cloud computing that will ramp up, causing many companies to look to a cloud provider for their enterprise needs, according to a recent article on Fox Business. For IT, this will mean managing both on-site and off-site systems and services, as well as actively assessing the cost benefit and impact of cloud computing to the enterprise. This may be the year in which small and midsize businesses become more exposed when it comes to mobile security–particularly as more employees bring consumer devices such as tablets and smart phones to work, and companies begin to embrace consumer technology as business productivity tools. But looking at these individual pieces of the four forces shows overlap and dependence upon one another, and IT must be willing to adapt existing business processes to account for these dependencies…