The Namibia Economist

Hardfacts on Software - Gartner identifies the top 10 strategic technologies for 2012

It feels as if the year is flying too fast. There is so much to do this year and there are simply not enough hours in the day. And things change faster than ever. So lets be agile and adapt. Wayne Gretzky said “The key thing is to be where the puck is going to be – not where it is” – most of us in Africa haven’t heard about Wayne – he is an ice hockey star… So let’s say this in a way that is clearer for us. “Aim where the bok is going to be when you shoot it running, else you hit the stomach and its going to be a mess!” This means aiming in front of the animal. Position your company on where business is going to be next year or five years from now! So let’s see what Gartner thinks are the trends and where one should be:
“Big Data. The size, complexity of formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of traditional data management technologies; it requires the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone. Many new technologies are emerging, with the potential to be disruptive (e.g., in-memory DBMS). Analytics has become a major driving application for data warehousing, with the use of MapReduce outside and inside the DBMS, and the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed will replace the single data warehouse model.
In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. In addition, it offers a new layer of the memory hierarchy in servers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Besides delivering a new storage tier, the availability of large amounts of memory is driving new application models. In-memory applications platforms include in-memory analytics, event processing platforms, in-memory application servers, in-memory data management and in-memory messaging.
Running existing applications in-memory or re-factoring these applications to exploit in-memory approaches can result in improved transactional application performance and scalability, lower latency (less than one microsecond) application messaging, dramatically faster batch execution and faster response time in analytical applications. As cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.
Extreme Low-Energy Servers. The adoption of low-energy servers — the radical new systems being proposed, announced and marketed by mostly new entrants to the server business —will take the buyer on a trip backward in time. These systems are built on low-power processors typically used in mobile devices. The potential advantage is delivering 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches. The new approach is well suited for certain non-compute intensive tasks such as map/reduce workloads or delivery of static objects to a website. However, most applications will require more processing power, and the low-energy server model potentially increases management costs, undercutting broader use of the approach.”
And you thought life could be boring! Well – there is one more trend coming up next week.
Until next time – and remember – Keep it (A)fresh

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