Five technologies that will transform your business in

2016

Software is now squarely at the center of the business.Business ideas are becoming reality at speeds unimaginable five years ago. All this is made possible by treating software as the vital agent of change it has become in this new world.

Here are five themes that Otto Berkes, Chief Technology Officer of CA Technologies, predicts will drive the tech and business agenda in 2016.

1. Component-based development comes of age, thanks to containers and microservices.2016 will see at least one decades-old dream come true: the use of component-based development.

The focus will be on smaller services, which can be deployed independently, delivering new features continuously. The days of waiting for entire applications to be revised are over.

Implication: Containers and microservices will increase flexibility and scalability.

They will transform the way developers build, deploy and upgrade applications and will accelerate the need for agile practices to stay ahead of changing market and customer demands.

Implication: Container proliferation will drive the need for management and control. As these feature-rich microservices deliver continuous upgrades multiple times per day, areas such as security, network optimization, storage, and failover become critical.

2. All roads lead to the emerging idea of “agile security.”Security can no longer be an afterthought. It has to be baked into every aspect of application design, development and deployment.

Bringing security into the fold early, together with DevOps and agile practices, adds the much-needed third pillar to high-speed software development at scale.

Implication: APIs are a crucial foundation for fast-cycle, scalable, and secure development.

In combination with the right tools, APIs simplify security challenges for developers, amplifying the impact of agile processes and ultimately driving trust and confidence as core components of the customer experience.

3. Real-time analytics drive customer value.The “demographic of one” enables organizations to personalize services, pricing, sales and products in real-time.

Analytics techniques use behavior patterns and machine learning to identify fraudsters and provide seamless experiences for real customers.

Implication: Analytics are most useful when applied to specific problems –not general ones.Big analytics packages looking for that “needle in the haystack” aren’t the answer.

Analytics isn’t ever going to be the solution to anything, but increasingly, it’s going to be part of the solution to everything.

4. IoT moves from the realm of interesting possibilities to the world of real applications.Although the Internet of Things (IoT) is a high-potential technology, it’s still in its early days. Right now, analytics and security hold the key to driving more value for customers.

The multi-layering and hand-offs inherent in IoTcreate more vulnerabilities and attack points than ever before.

Implication: The “identity of things” will be a major topic in 2016.

Just as a person’s ID needs authenticating, the “identity” of a device and any data flowing to and from it must be confirmed and trusted.

5. Blockchain finds its footing.

The surprise of 2016 will be the resurgence of blockchain technology.

Blockchain is poised for renewal, driven by the IoTand the need to secure and record the engagements among devices.

Implication: It’s as if blockchainwas purpose-made for IoT.IoT needs a technology, like blockchain, that relies on a network of computers and has privacy at its core.

The capability exists for blockchain to become the storage of choice for sensors and IoT in general.

Bottom line: Software is the agent of change.Businesses have the potential in 2016 to exceed customer expectations on every level by living agile practices and digitally transforming their operations.

Position yourself for 2016 by downloading the paper by Oxford Economics, “The Battle for Competitive Advantage in the App Economy”

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