January 3, 2018 •Jeff Kish
Welcome to the New Year, all! Today I'm going to join in the chorus sung 'round the Internet as 2018 predictions are laid out in just enough detail that they might come true. If you've not been paying attention throughout 2017, these trends may catch you off your guard over the next year.
Programmability and SDN
I attended Cisco Live back in June, where I wrote a blog post about the rise of network programmability, with tools such as python scripting, RESTful APIs, and Ansible making quite the disruptive splash in our industry. In a 2016 end-of-year forecast, Gartner’s research vice president Andrew Lerner predicted “the death of the CLI,” indicating that by 2020, only 30 percent of network operations teams will be relying on the CLI as their primary interface, down from 85 percent at the end of 2016.
"The CLI is a dying interface, and we must begin the process of migrating to these new tools to do our jobs effectively. "
Organizations will continue down this path of programmability and SDN - will you embrace this trend in 2018, or will your skills become outdated like so many technologists before us?
Hybrid Cloud Adoption
This adoption will be seen in two ways: first, private cloud operations will creep into the public cloud, migrating edge applications and unstable workloads to a cloud service provider. However, the reverse will also be true, as
public cloud shops will combat their steep monthly bills by migrating select applications back on-premise. As I recently wrote in another blog post, public cloud is expensive and rarely ends in a steady-state that is cost-justifiable.
Certain workloads belong on-premise, others belong in the public cloud, and organizations will further align their deployments with this paradigm. As such, software sets such as cloud brokers and data center automation tools will see increased utilization in 2018 as hybrid cloud adoption continues.
Security Projects Rising
Once upon a time, it was difficult to convince CIOs that their networks were being targeted. Adopting a spirit of relativity, many would look at the global landscape and firmly believe their organization was too small to be targeted. Ransomware, evil as it is, has done us the great favor of reversing that mentality - from CEOs to CIOs to even me within my own home, we all believe we can be hit with ransomware. Fortunately, not all is lost, as key security paradigms have given us an edge over the bad guys.
DNS Security and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) are a one-two punch to most ransomware attacks, and we can dig even deeper with anomaly detection (Network as a Sensor) applications. As a bonus, DR software can cleverly be used as an outside-the-box ransomware mitigation package as well. CIOs are now able to effectively repel this criminal activity, and the adoption rate for these technologies will only increase into 2018.
Make it a Great Year
On behalf of NSI, I want to wish you the happiest of New Years. I hope your 2018 is filled with the adoption of new technologies and the growth of your skillset in a market that craves programmability, cloud, and security expertise. I was able to enjoy a white Christmas where I live, and I hope I see lots of "white" in 2018 as well - lots of whiteboards, that is!