WATCH OUT FOR THESE TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN 2022

The use of digital technology has accelerated in recent years, producing a substantial demand for a variety of digital services. This quick increase is mostly the result of offices implementing hybrid work arrangements, increased data security concerns, and general business disruptions. We should anticipate organisations to want more control over their data in the next years, with a larger emphasis on the ability to support portability and smooth responsiveness to changing future needs.

Almost everything is still in play with cloud computing and cloud services. Whether it's the battle of the main global hyperscalers or the many current scenarios such as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and containers. Each implementation has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, as well as its own set of data security needs. Here are a few important forecasts for the technology sector in 2022 and beyond.

A greater focus on data security and data portability will be required.

Because of the pandemic's devastating effect, many firms in India have transitioned to a hybrid work environment, and the adoption of digital transformation initiatives has clearly grown. This has made data preservation and protection even more challenging, posing a challenge to Indian enterprises to capitalise on this gap and properly use and preserve data while facilitating corporate development. Because data resides in numerous locations due to the growth of platforms from physical to virtual to cloud to containers, companies must the flexibility to safeguard their data independent of physical location, hypervisor, or application. Workloads need protection regardless of where they are kept. According to our Veeam Data Security Trends Report 2021, as customers become more aware of the need of data protection, there will be an increase in demand for data protection solutions. Organizations are considering investing in proper technological solutions and data security measures to assist them retain their performance standards and customer confidence – allowing them to effectively exploit sensitive data in an acceptable way.

Similarly, data portability will undoubtedly be a major issue for many in 2022. Organizations will endeavour to provide their users with access to data and a faultless service experience across cloud environments when workers return to work. Data portability will minimise data transportation friction and allow cloud acceleration. According to our 2021 Cloud Protection Trends Report, 36% of executives say that considering portability would be critical. With WFH opening to hybrid format, the ability to securely transfer data will be a game changer. As a result, I believe that in the coming months, businesses will place a greater emphasis on accommodating various data protection strategies, such as increasing the frequency of data backups, maintaining data backups in multiple locations (Veeam's 32110 rule), performing regular penetration testing, installing virtual tripwires, developing a data usage policy, and so on.

With the migration of most workloads to the cloud, cloud-hosted IT delivery models such as IaaS and SaaS will gain popularity for production and disaster recovery.
While organisations had begun to utilise cloud before the COVID-19 outbreak, the pandemic has increased awareness of its value and use-cases. Businesses have seen the need to accelerate their digital transformation journey in the previous 18 months, as well as the rising requirement to migrate to cloud services in order to offer a seamless and secure remote working experience. According to a recent Gartner analysis, India's cloud industry is expected to reach USD 5.6 billion by 2022, representing a 26 percent increase year on year. Employees now expect fast, quick, and pleasant work experiences as a consequence of the transition to a hybrid work environment.

Furthermore, organisations who have understood the many advantages of a cloud-native approach are also embracing this technology for lateral expansion – to improve agility, capability, meet shifting needs for 24x7 availability, boost deployment speed, and lower IT expenses. Cloud computing served as the foundation for as-a-service models; however, as IoT (Internet of Things) and edge computing become more popular, we can expect several service-based models to emerge in the near future, owing to factors such as their ability to create new and improved ways to maximise efficiency, enhance performance, and ensure the availability of data with very low latency.

Containerization and Kubernetes will take centre stage:

In the recent year, India has experienced a spike in the number of cyberattacks due to the rising use of digital services throughout the nation. According to Indian government statistics, almost 1.16 million cyberattacks were recorded in 2020, nearly double the number reported in 2019. Every day of the year, an average of 3,137 cybersecurity-related incidents were reported.
At the same time as ransomware attacks grew, the usage of Kubernetes and containers has accelerated and shown to be helpful. Gartner predicts that by 2024, 75 percent of big firms in developed economies will have used containers. These developments have enriched the present computing paradigm fueled by Kubernetes and containers. Kubernetes is the contemporary computing's unifying fabric. One of the strongest defences against cyber-attacks is to use it to reduce the most critical data dangers in today's risk environment. Furthermore, backup and recovery systems enable automation and smoothly integrate into current processes. A solid ransomware data protection approach includes allowing immutability, establishing backups with distinct code pathways, safeguarding backups for optimum efficacy, and enabling frictionless recoveries. Kubernetes can aid in the elimination of manual procedures and the reduction of infrastructure expenses. It enables container-based design across a portfolio of major corporate programmes, allowing enterprises to make the most of their cloud and hardware expenditures. It may also provide agility throughout the IT Ecosystem.

In 2022, SMEs and their IT professionals will increasingly adopt Kubernetes due to the growing demand for improved ransomware practises, simplified business operations, and business agility.