Earlier today I was in a reflective mood as yet another year draws to a close.
However, what is true of our inner life is also true of our technology.
We can invent all kinds of stuff but unless we understand its real value and how to exploit this it is worthless. With this in mind here is my sneak preview of what trends and technologies will make a difference in 2007.
Virtualization Management
In my world the latest "stuff" is virtualization (leaving aside the fact that is really the latest reincarnation of a concept that has been around since Turing first proposed his universal machine).
Sure the many flavors of virtualization being marketed today are each clever in their own way but what renders virtualization really interesting is our ability to harness or manage it otherwise features like the live migration of VMs, application components etc etc are merely curiosities.
Know how isn't enough. It's about knowing when and why to apply know how that matters.
Moving Beyond Automation
If virtualization management is key then how this is achieved will be equally important.
In 2007 early adopters will move beyond plain vanilla run book automation and start to combine this with policy-based resource orchestration. Policy-based orchestration will determine precisely which services to run and what resources these will need to deliver the required service level; as well as resolving resource conflicts that may arise.
Service Level Management
Policy-based orchestration is an incredibly powerful tool but ultimately we will be judged on our ability to manage IT infrastructure software and services in accordance with specific service level agreements with the business. Building on policy-based orchestration service level management will enable us to gauge the effectiveness of individual policies by monitoring service level objectives and automatically adjusting these to ensure that overall SLAs are not breached.
Delivering Dynamic Infrastructure
Policy-based orchestration combined with robust Service Level Management represents a departure from earlier Grid-based attempts to create a dynamic infrastructure capable of supporting the utility computing model regardless of whether this is applied internally or offered as a business service.
Whereas Grid was essentially a bottom up approach and imposed a somewhat rigid geometry and required services to map onto this (easy in the case of compute intensive applications but far less tractable otherwise); policy-based orchestration is top down and focuses explicitly on servicing the requirements of the application or service.
Conceptually, you can think of these requirements as being dialed in and the underlying infrastructure composing itself to form the appropriate geometry to suit the service and not the other way around.
SOI - The Missing Link
Policy-based orchestration is the missing link in creating a true Service-oriented Infrastructure. When combined with virtualization and automated provisioning it delivers the platform for shared services capable of supporting the various flavors of SOA that are being touted.
Watch out for some interesting partnerships between Enigmatec and other exciting companies to deliver a best-of-breed SOI solution.
Hot Topics
Finally what hot topics are going to dominate the conversation in the coffee shops and on the campuses in 2007?
The role of ITIL is already a hot topic. Alongside this at a more granular level there will be a lot of interest in the role of virtual appliances as components or building blocks of more complex composite applications and services while at the same time application virtualization will heat up as companies like BEA step up.
However, ultimately whoever the winners and losers are I expect emerging solutions to be built on solid policy-based foundations.
So that's it until 2007 when we will no doubt drill down on some of these predictions, find out which ones were wrong, as well as look at best practices in much greater detail.
I'm signing off 2006 by wishing you all a peaceful and prosperous New Year.
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