Mobility and Hybrid Clouds Top Tech Trends in 2013

The Forecast Is Bright for Hybrid Clouds — Traditional virtual private network (VPN) methods are on the way out, and distributed data centers, and the intelligent wired and mobile networks that connect them, now represent a viable alternative, according to Verizon. The company predicts that in 2013, there will be a shift from VPNs to public, private, and hybrid clouds.

The Mobile Majority Is Taking Charge — Verizon cites a Forrester report to back up the company’s second business-tech trend in 2013: “A full 66 percent of employees now use two or more mobile devices for work.” In addition, the lives of employees will be torn between their work and private lives. Mobility strategies will be adopted by companies to adapt to this change. To accomodate the merge, companies will be force to be more proactive in tackling the possible challenges.

Connected Machines Drive New Insights — What helps you make decisions in your company? Data — plain and simple. According to Verizon, “The ability to collect, store and analyze overwhelming volumes of data will define which enterprises extract the best insights and make the most agile decisions, to their competitive advantage.” To gain an upper hand, enterprises will need to work with vendors with strong and global ecosystems.

Networks Will Be Smarter Than You and Invisible — Sounds offensive, doesn’t it? Luckily, Verizon explains its statement, “Intelligent fabric that connects everything and everyone will render underlying networks invisible to end users.” Even as overall IP traffic grows at a compound annual growth rate of 29 percent through 2016, Verizon stands by its prediction.

Security is the New Arms Race — What does that mean for MSPs? A few things. Security breaches span access, infrastructure, and apps, leaving enterprises behind with a mess. Enterprises will look to hire MSPs to protect physical, intellectual and financial capital. According to Verizon, in 2013, security will move out of the specialist realm, becoming a mainstream IT must-have.