Experts predict what 2016 will bring for DevOps and IT

As the holidays approach, tech vendors and the tech media love to analyze the year in review and speculate about what next year will look like. I recently had a chance to talk with a few experts and gather their thoughts on what DevOps and IT will bring us in 2016:

With only a couple weeks left in 2015 it’s time to start looking ahead to what next year has in store. Let’s be honest—most of us have already mentally checked out for the holidays anyway, so it’s already 2016 for all intents and purposes. I spoke with a handful of industry experts to get some thoughts on what we have to look forward to in 2016.

Let’s just jump right in:

1. Log Management will play a larger role

According to Christian Beedgen, CTO of Sumo Logic, log management will emerge as the most underrated opportunity for IT. “Thinking about log data may seem too far in the weeds for most tech industry professionals. However, using analytics to monitor, manage and gather insights from logs will be the only near-perfect way to make sense of the increasingly complex and cloud-based architectures.” Log management isn’t exactly new or cutting edge, but Beedgen believes that 2016 will see more vendors trying to move into the log management space, and more organizations trying to use log management to make sense of their big data mess.

2. Business leaders will demand better insight

On a similar note, Rick Fitz, senior VP or IT Markets for Splunk, believes that analyzing data and metrics will also play a role from a business strategy perspective. “In 2016 we will see data science demystified, moving from Ph.D. to MBA, with easier ways emerging to consume, analyze and correlate machine data. As business leaders increasingly go digital, this will result in greater “digital insight” into engagement, satisfaction, competition, effectiveness, response, revenue and other business goals.”

3. Sharing economy will transform IT

Companies like Uber and AirBnB have transformed entire market segments. The sharing economy has changed the way businesses engage customers and deliver services, and that includes IT through aspects such as cloud services, microservices, APIs and more. Fitz predicts, “Next year this ‘Uberfication of IT’ will turn into a ‘Balkanization of IT,’ driving stakeholders to demand better insight, governance and control of federated technologies to integrate adoption, usage, monitoring, security, cost control and more across shared services.”

4. Enterprise DevOps will grow rapidly

The DevOps revolution has taken IT and app development by storm in recent years, but most of the traction has been in startups or smaller businesses that have more freedom to shift gears and embrace new concepts. Enterprise adoption has been growing, but at a much slower rate. Andi Mann, chief technology advocate for Splunk, said, “In 2016 we will see rapid acceleration of DevOps with 50 percent or more of large businesses finally adopting ‘Enterprise DevOps’ — a pragmatic, scalable approach to adopting the culture, process and technology changes at the heart of DevOps.”

Check out the full list on DevOps.com: 7 things 2016 has in store for the future of DevOps and IT.