As we head into the New Year, I’d like to focus on three organizational trends that will have a direct and significant impact on technology decisions for the CIO in 2015. Call them predictions, New Year's resolutions, or just observations from interacting with some of the most effective CIOs in the world.
Blur the line between big data and data
Like it or not, big data is here to stay. There is much anecdotal evidence to prove that businesses that manage by data over gut are more competitive in the long run. A good part of the last decade has been spent on pilot big data projects and stand-alone deployments. 2015 will mark the inflection point in the adoption of big data technologies as they transition into the enterprise data management landscape and integrate tightly with traditional Data Warehouses and Business Intelligence tools. As Mike Olson, CEO if Cloudera, succinctly put it during a keynote at the Strata conference, “Hadoop will disappear,” implying that it will be managed and governed at par with other business-critical IT systems.
Control cloud sprawl
Just as virtualization technology addressed server sprawl, and subsequently cloud technology addressed virtualization sprawl, we are now in the age of cloud sprawl. The combination of affordable cloud service providers and the rise of the line-of-business IT department has resulted in an explosion of projects housed in the cloud, significantly increasing the risk exposure of the enterprise. The trick to managing cloud sprawl is to do it without compromising agility and security while deploying solutions that truly enable an open approach to hybrid clouds.
Re-align IT to make new friends in the line of business
IT shops that build applications and services through the lens of the business will gain a competitive edge for their businesses. The best CIOs will encourage a retraining and realignment of their reports so they have a comprehensive view across business units, and understand business challenges and priorities. New roles such as the Business Information Officer will emerge to help the CIO view IT projects through a business lens to ensure greater satisfaction of business users who are the end consumers of IT services.
2014 has certainly been a busy year for the industry. Here’s wishing you continued success in 2015.
Read, "CIOs should know the 3 new changes in a data life-cycle."
Sarangan Rangachari leads the Storage and Big Data business unit at Red Hat and is responsible for the overall strategy and execution of Red Hat’s storage and big data software portfolio. Prior to this role, Rangachari drove Red Hat’s Cloud ecosystem strategy. He joined Red Hat in 2010 with more than 25 years of industry experience, including in-depth software product management and product marketing experience, and 18 years in storage software.
