Some of this year's technological trends are a response to the long-known IT challenges. Others relate to the technological dimension of greater business opportunities. However, all of them promise significant organizational changes not only in large corporations, but also in our homes.
Will Artificial Intelligence enter our homes for good? What technological trends will dominate public discussion? When will the human be replaced by machines? We have asked Radosław Dziadusz, Cloud Native Technical Director at Comarch to answer these and many other questions.
Radek, you are a person who constantly follows technological trends. What trends do you think will dominate the discussion about new technologies in 2020?
I think that number one among technological trends will be a constantly growing, broadly understood cloud. This can be seen even in the gaming market, whose development is following a similar direction to the development of cloud solutions. It is worth taking a closer look at the phenomenon of decentralization of cloud computing. Does Edge Computing really have a chance to replace the cloud computing paradigm that has been so popular up to now? We will soon find out. From a purely technical point of view, the development of service meshes and the gradual resignation from heavy application servers are also interesting.
My prediction is also that we are gradually going to stop using the traditional application monitoring pyramid (metrics, logs, tracing) and move towards consolidated APM applications which will see an increased importance in the IT market. An interesting trend can also be observed today. All cutting-edge solutions are in one way or another taken over by big players.
A mature alternative to app containerization is something that absolutely must appear on the market. In this context I foresee a rapid development for solutions like Podman. Of course, as every year, we are surely going witness a carousel among databases. The better ones will naturally be purchased and commercialized. I hope that the void will be quickly filled with new ones. It’s worth pointing out that multipurpose database market is growing all the time, an example of which are graph-document databases or relational databases with the "time-series" extension. I am convinced that in 2020 there will be more and more such "hybrids" on the market.
Do you think smartphones will keep receiving emotional response from the public? It is probably the most used and the most discussed technological gadget.
I fully agree. I believe that this year’s technological trends will keep revolving around them. It has to do with the fact that almost anyone can use smartphones on a daily basis, without any restrictions. Also, the mobile devices market is growing dynamically in many directions. On one hand, the introduction of the 5G network is being discussed. Yet, on the other hand, the smartphone producers are regularly competing against other, related tools (such as smart bands). It is precisely because of the latter that the market is looking so interesting now. Also, let’s not forget about totally new solutions, such as virtual sim, which in the near future will significantly simplify the lives of users.
And not only that! As a next step, several significant companies have already decided to develop foldable phones. All this shows that we are truly on the eve of a small utility revolution.
What are your views on the VR and AR market? After the first boom for this technology and its enormous potential forecasts, we are still waiting for mass implementation.
I am also waiting for the boom. I honestly admit that I'm a huge fan of VR reality in particular and I am optimistic about its development. Just look at the numbers. PS4 goggle sales have exceeded 4 million. It shows something! Unfortunately, however, there are still not enough good that would allow us to firmly admit that VR will stay with us for good.
Augmented Reality is a different story.The service market shows a constant increase in ideas. The market value is already estimated at m than US$ 10 billion and still growing.
On the down side, although VR and AR are surely the technologies of the future, I’m afraid we will have to wait for at least several years for their full implementation.
Almost every week one can read or hear about new breakthrough solutions in the field of machine learning. It looks like 2020 will be no different. Will Artificial Intelligence come to our homes for good?
I think that artificial intelligence has long come to our homes, or is right at our doors, whether we want it or not.
Is there anyone today who doesn’t use navigation in their car to dynamically determine which way to get home the fastest to avoid traffic jams? Most of us also use streaming services to watch TV, don’t we? Artificial Intelligence-based calculations are used to give us recommendations of titles or even decides which thumbnail to show us in the navigation.
At any time, we can also use predictive algorithms in our bank accounts, which can show the period of the year with more expenses or allow us to automatically pay the parking fee in a mall.
All the above-mentioned examples show that artificial intelligence is already with us and it is only a matter of time when it will settle down for good.
As a cloud solutions specialist, do you agree that "Multi-cloud" solution providers are the modern market winners?
Definitely YES. Although as an architect I have to add that in this case, the most important thing is that each solution should be able to work at its maximum potential regardless of the environment.
It is important for a specific solution (application) to reach a sufficient level of maturity. It must be able to run in the above-mentioned mode. In this way we will be able to avoid the popular vendor-lock that prevents us from further developing the application.
Clients today show that the security and high availability of applications are the key issues for them. This effect can only be ensured by properly “spreading” the service onto many different suppliers.
Since we are talking about multi-clouds, let’s not forget that there are “hybrid clouds” as well, which suppliers should pay attention to. Hybrid - cloud market also shows a growing need to split the necessary resources into private and shared ones.
Many people undergo a lot of stress with the idea of storing data somewhere in the "network". Talks about cyberterrorism and constant data leakage are all over the media. Are cloud solutions safe then?
Personally, I think they are just as safe or dangerous as "traditional" data storage. What happens is that for many people it is easier to imagine files locked in an armored cabinet than safely stored on virtual servers. That’s the main reason of the fear, I guess.
Also, let’s not forget that a large part of successful attacks has always been and will be conditioned by human errors. Think about it: what was a memory leak in the past? Perhaps leaving someone’s CV in the printer. Today someone can upload their photo with the administrator's password in the background, but the key problem remains the same.
To sum up, I think that regardless of the era, we will be constantly exposed to attacks on our privacy, no matter how we define it.
Finally, the last point. In your opinion, should we be afraid of the automation and technological progress? Robots are slowly replacing human cashiers, they will soon replace drivers, more and more professions are being taken over by machines…
This is an interesting issue, with a slight populistic aspect. Of course, looking at Moor's law (although recently disputed) and general market interest in AI / ML tools, you can imagine that we will overcome the internal resistance associated with the "valley of eerie" and one day we will wake up in a world full of robots.
I think that all the changes we are witnessing now have been happening for many years. Automation and disappearance of certain industries and specializations is a natural process. Just as it is difficult to find a cooper today, it may be difficult to find a driver in 10 or 20 years. On the other hand, this can obviously mean that a market for new kinds of jobs will open. I find it unlikely that the labor market can ever be dominated by robots not only in the near but also a further future. We can sleep peacefully.