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2019 IT Predictions: Applications Remain Top of Mind, AIOps Meets Reality

Len Rosenthal

This time last year, we predicted that IT managers were going to move away from the "hybrid data center" and finally realize the reality of the "hybrid application" – the concept that there are multiple components to a single application, living in different data centers and on different infrastructure types. And this year, we saw that prediction of an increased focus on applications come to pass, as organizations increasingly made buying and deployment decisions based on the needs of their applications. This also resulted in many organizations pulling workloads from the public cloud and redeploying them on-premises, due to an increased understanding the workload requirements and performance-focused SLAs.

It's become clear that not only do an organization's applications drive the business, but they actually are the business. As we move into 2019, the application will continue to be the focus of the conversation, but it will also evolve to be the central driver of IT, both from a workload placement perspective and from an operations management angle. IT departments are continuously trying to contextualize the information and insights provided by these applications, but this is much easier said than done. The problem is that many organizations lack real-time application-aware monitoring capabilities, leading to a limited understanding of how applications are interacting with the various infrastructure components. As a result, IT departments continue to "fly blind" when it comes to allocating their on-prem and cloud-based infrastructure resources to support the number one priority: customer-facing applications.

One technology hitting the headlines lately is AIOps, Gartner's category name for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-assisted operations. If 2018 was the year of aggressively marketing these technologies, 2019 will be the year of cutting through the hype and revealing their true value when actually applied in a meaningful manner. This is crucial, as organizations are slowly but surely understanding that AIOps may not be the "easy button" they initially thought it was.

While some AIOps solutions have promised to relieve tool fatigue and make sense of the onslaught of data and alerts constantly berating IT practitioners, AIOps unfortunately isn't a "set it and forget it" solution – quite the opposite, in fact. Context and efficient integrations with existing systems are paramount to successful AIOps, and more and more organizations will soon discover that an algorithm combined with corollary alerts does not fix everything.

Much like the hype cycle we experienced with the cloud in the past decade, we're now starting to move past the buzzword phase and into the reality of meaningful AIOps initiatives. According to Gartner, we should expect to see more I&O leaders initiating AIOps deployments over the next two to five years, with most organizations looking to augment their IT service management and overall automation strategies.

Adoption of AIOps technologies didn't pan out the way IT vendors may have anticipated in 2018, and that tends to happen when the "solution" really isn't a solution at all, but rather an incremental feature or capability that's dressed up by buzzwords and marketing-speak. However, with organizations becoming more savvy about combining real-time monitoring with AIOps in 2019 and beyond, buying decisions will shift and the adoption of true application-aware AIOps will emerge in 2019 – resulting in more successful deployments of the technology.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

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2019 IT Predictions: Applications Remain Top of Mind, AIOps Meets Reality

Len Rosenthal

This time last year, we predicted that IT managers were going to move away from the "hybrid data center" and finally realize the reality of the "hybrid application" – the concept that there are multiple components to a single application, living in different data centers and on different infrastructure types. And this year, we saw that prediction of an increased focus on applications come to pass, as organizations increasingly made buying and deployment decisions based on the needs of their applications. This also resulted in many organizations pulling workloads from the public cloud and redeploying them on-premises, due to an increased understanding the workload requirements and performance-focused SLAs.

It's become clear that not only do an organization's applications drive the business, but they actually are the business. As we move into 2019, the application will continue to be the focus of the conversation, but it will also evolve to be the central driver of IT, both from a workload placement perspective and from an operations management angle. IT departments are continuously trying to contextualize the information and insights provided by these applications, but this is much easier said than done. The problem is that many organizations lack real-time application-aware monitoring capabilities, leading to a limited understanding of how applications are interacting with the various infrastructure components. As a result, IT departments continue to "fly blind" when it comes to allocating their on-prem and cloud-based infrastructure resources to support the number one priority: customer-facing applications.

One technology hitting the headlines lately is AIOps, Gartner's category name for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning-assisted operations. If 2018 was the year of aggressively marketing these technologies, 2019 will be the year of cutting through the hype and revealing their true value when actually applied in a meaningful manner. This is crucial, as organizations are slowly but surely understanding that AIOps may not be the "easy button" they initially thought it was.

While some AIOps solutions have promised to relieve tool fatigue and make sense of the onslaught of data and alerts constantly berating IT practitioners, AIOps unfortunately isn't a "set it and forget it" solution – quite the opposite, in fact. Context and efficient integrations with existing systems are paramount to successful AIOps, and more and more organizations will soon discover that an algorithm combined with corollary alerts does not fix everything.

Much like the hype cycle we experienced with the cloud in the past decade, we're now starting to move past the buzzword phase and into the reality of meaningful AIOps initiatives. According to Gartner, we should expect to see more I&O leaders initiating AIOps deployments over the next two to five years, with most organizations looking to augment their IT service management and overall automation strategies.

Adoption of AIOps technologies didn't pan out the way IT vendors may have anticipated in 2018, and that tends to happen when the "solution" really isn't a solution at all, but rather an incremental feature or capability that's dressed up by buzzwords and marketing-speak. However, with organizations becoming more savvy about combining real-time monitoring with AIOps in 2019 and beyond, buying decisions will shift and the adoption of true application-aware AIOps will emerge in 2019 – resulting in more successful deployments of the technology.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...