Looking ahead to network technology trends in 2018

If 2017 was considered the year of major disruptive technologies, what else will happen in 2018? 2018 will be remembered as the year IT professionals need to adapt to a huge shift in the way enterprise IT operates.

In the past few years, virtualization, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and advanced data center technologies have all lived up to expectations. So, let’s take a look at four technologies that will become technology trends in 2018 and have the potential to change your business.

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1. Cloud hosting for everything

Infrastructure components are much easier to manage in the cloud than in an on-premises data center. Connecting to a corporate office via VPN and then launching a remote desktop application to access infrastructure management tools will soon be a thing of the past.

Management of all infrastructure services (including servers, applications, databases, security tools, network hardware) can be accessed through an HTML5 portal accessible from anywhere in the world. This will not only simplify the practice of troubleshooting after hours, but will also usher in a new era of remote IT workers who are unaware of physical boundaries.

2. Serverless computing

Among the technology trends in 2018, the adoption of serverless computing by enterprises will increase significantly. Thanks to great advances in technology from cloud computing service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, serverless computing is gradually eliminating the need for operating systems when deploying applications and services in the cloud.

Serverless computing looks like a container-based technology that will be the next major evolution in enterprise computing. Serverless computing has made huge progress in the past few months. As a result, many people have begun to claim that they will no longer use traditional server operating systems.

3. AI-integrated applications

Today’s applications will not only run faster and be easier to use, but they will also become smarter. Many vendors seek to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into applications that are already in use today through developers. From an infrastructure perspective, adding artificial intelligence to the 2018 technology trends means more computing power, increased bandwidth requirements, and lower latency between applications and end users.

In fact, AI is increasing the real-time data requirements of some critical business applications to the point where they are as important as traditional voice and video communications. Therefore, enterprises need to be prepared to adjust their service quality strategies and prioritize AI-integrated applications.

4. Unified enterprise applications

Finally, advances in API tools and development platforms will lead organizations to unify their entire suite of enterprise applications in a meaningful way. APIs open the door for two or more previously separate applications to be combined to share information between applications. Instead of relying on users to extract relevant data from multiple applications to make business decisions, API access, automation, and artificial intelligence will be used. Developers will create these unified enterprise applications to save time and streamline business functions.

At first glance, it may seem that AI-integrated applications have little impact on the IT infrastructure side of the IT business. But a closer look reveals that combining data from two or more applications requires quite a bit from a backend perspective. This is especially true when an enterprise is working in a large, distributed hybrid or multi-cloud environment. If this is the case, the enterprise may need to deal with issues such as data silos, network latency, and other network connectivity and optimization tasks.