As we enter 2018, businesses are busy anticipating what the new year will bring in terms of industry developments, growing trends, and hidden surprises. In 2017, the increased use of automation within testing teams (where Agile development boosted speed of release), led to QA becoming much more embedded within development teams than would have been the case a few years ago. As a result, proper software testing and monitoring assumes ever greater importance.
The natural question is – what next? Here are some of the changes we believe will happen within our industry in 2018:
AI Breakthroughs Will Begin
Organizations will make breakthroughs with machine learning and artificial intelligence in 2018, especially when it comes to using this technology to get a better understanding of their collected data.
Often, it's hard to see the physical manifestation of wider concepts like AI, but in our space, physical objects – “intelligent things” – fill that gap. Previously, IoT devices sent data for limited onward processing; now, machine learning means devices are capable of transforming that same data into actionable insight. Realtime feedback will change the behavior of our IoT devices for good.
Focus on Quality, Security and Resilience
Businesses will need to address the overall quality of their services as the competitive landscape evens out
Given the high level of major outages in 2017, it is evident that the industry has not been moving fast enough to address the explosive growth of the IoT and API economy. There are organizations that are leading the way and achieving great things in both testing and monitoring; however, most are still disproportionally focusing on speed rather than quality, security and resilience.
Looking into 2018, businesses will need to address the overall quality of their services as the competitive landscape evens out. This will result in a refocus on the monitoring of the customer experience and the need for extensive end-to-end testing, embedded within the delivery lifecycle.
Services Will be a Key Differentiator
In 2018, services will become more of the differentiating factor, as capabilities become more similar. Differentiation of services will come down to availability, ease of use and consistency of a quality experience.
The increased reliance on IoT devices, their data and their management will also drive the need for high availability of the API services that these devices will talk to. Monitoring the availability of these APIs will be the critical factor in ensuring that business can continue to run (especially in the manufacturing space), and that business intelligence data can be trusted by decision makers.
Customer Experience Will Become More Important Than Ever
Software testing and monitoring has historically been the realm of the IT team, be that the development teams for testing, or operations on the monitoring side.
In 2018, the digital transformation drive is underway in most enterprises, combined with the explosion of IoT devices and the data processing that derives from them. This will draw the focus onto both the quality of the application and the overall customer experience.
Consequently, both testing and monitoring should be of significant interest to the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Marketing Officer within organizations, resulting in more rounded testing with team members coming from different parts of the business. That's a potential step change in the type of testing that would be carried out, as well as in the visibility within the business of monitoring results and testing success.
The Way We Validate Results Will Change
2018 will see the adoption of AI, in the form of machine learning, by major software vendors who will be embedding it within their core applications. This machine learning will also become a standard platform for data analytics for new development initiatives. The IoT market will take greatest advantage from this adoption, as the volume of data needing analysis grows exponentially.
This is going to challenge the testing community as new ways of testing and validating the results from AI need to be identified and embedded within the development lifecycle.
The Latest
The use of hybrid multicloud models is forecasted to double over the next one to three years as IT decision makers are facing new pressures to modernize IT infrastructures because of drivers like AI, security, and sustainability, according to the Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) report from Nutanix ...
Over the last 20 years Digital Employee Experience has become a necessity for companies committed to digital transformation and improving IT experiences. In fact, by 2025, more than 50% of IT organizations will use digital employee experience to prioritize and measure digital initiative success ...
While most companies are now deploying cloud-based technologies, the 2024 Secure Cloud Networking Field Report from Aviatrix found that there is a silent struggle to maximize value from those investments. Many of the challenges organizations have faced over the past several years have evolved, but continue today ...
In our latest research, Cisco's The App Attention Index 2023: Beware the Application Generation, 62% of consumers report their expectations for digital experiences are far higher than they were two years ago, and 64% state they are less forgiving of poor digital services than they were just 12 months ago ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 5, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses the network source of truth ...
A vast majority (89%) of organizations have rapidly expanded their technology in the past few years and three quarters (76%) say it's brought with it increased "chaos" that they have to manage, according to Situation Report 2024: Managing Technology Chaos from Software AG ...
In 2024 the number one challenge facing IT teams is a lack of skilled workers, and many are turning to automation as an answer, according to IT Trends: 2024 Industry Report ...
Organizations are continuing to embrace multicloud environments and cloud-native architectures to enable rapid transformation and deliver secure innovation. However, despite the speed, scale, and agility enabled by these modern cloud ecosystems, organizations are struggling to manage the explosion of data they create, according to The state of observability 2024: Overcoming complexity through AI-driven analytics and automation strategies, a report from Dynatrace ...
Organizations recognize the value of observability, but only 10% of them are actually practicing full observability of their applications and infrastructure. This is among the key findings from the recently completed Logz.io 2024 Observability Pulse Survey and Report ...
Businesses must adopt a comprehensive Internet Performance Monitoring (IPM) strategy, says Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT analyst research firm. This strategy is crucial to bridge the significant observability gap within today's complex IT infrastructures. The recommendation is particularly timely, given that 99% of enterprises are expanding their use of the Internet as a primary connectivity conduit while facing challenges due to the inefficiency of multiple, disjointed monitoring tools, according to Modern Enterprises Must Boost Observability with Internet Performance Monitoring, a new report from EMA and Catchpoint ...
