Veeam: directions for data in 2021

Digital or technological advancements and innovations have been of key concern for businesses and governments lately. The proliferation of new technology has also increased the importance of conversations related to trust, data movement, data privacy, data protection, digital identity, and availability. Danny Allan, CTO and Senior VP of Product Strategy, Veeam and Anthony Spiteri, Senior Global Technologist, Veeam share their 2021 predictions against this backdrop. According to Allan:

Developers will have more say in technology direction and data strategy of companies

We will see an aggressive “shift to the left” across all industries, where CIOs will depend more on their development teams to guide the technical direction of the company. Historically, development teams have taken a top-down approach to move their data to the cloud, but – as have many things in the world – this changed with the pandemic with the reinforcement of cloud-based environments.

In 2021, we’ll see DevOps teams continuing to have far more say in the data strategy process, and as a result we’ll see a greater increase in the mobility of workloads, correlating with an increase in cloud data management techniques.

A greater focus on protecting and managing work collaboration platform data in the cloud

Distributed workforces were already on an upward trajectory but have been completely kicked into overdrive with the COVID-19 pandemic. With many companies extending work-at-home opportunities through mid-next year, reliance on cloud-based collaboration platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack, will only increase.

This means even more teams will be looking to harness the power of the cloud to store an influx of data from collaboration platforms. In 2021, this will create more focus, awareness and need for data protection and management for collaboration software.

With the decline of hardware, software-defined models will become more prominent

Appliances will diminish in their attractiveness as we shift towards software-defined models. Ten years ago, appliances were these shiny new toys that everyone wanted to get their hands on; however they have not had the staying power we predicted they would. In fact, we’ve seen a shift towards backup-as-a- service and away from appliances. Remote work in the pandemic had a real impact on how we dealt with hardware in 2020 that will continue into 2021 as software-defined models take centrestage.

Machine learning will become democratised in the cloud, around data

Already, we are seeing organisations recognise the unlimited opportunities available to them through data they have already collected. Data re-use will be a big trend we see organisations shifting to 2021, with many leveraging the power of machine learning to help them do this. This is still in the emerging stages; however, its adoption will increase as organisations recognise how it can help them analyse and re-use data that they already have. By leveraging machine learning in the cloud, organisations will ultimately become smarter.

Containers will not become mainstream in 2021

Predictions over the last few years have pointed to containers becoming mainstream, but ultimately, they will not cross the chasm in 2021. Large enterprises will continue to build on Kubernetes, as they enable portability to move outside of the cloud and unlimited scale; however difficulties associated with deployment will limit its adoption beyond large companies.

As part of this continued adoption from enterprises, there will also be a need to develop a Kubernetes-native backup because these environments are so fundamentally different than those based on earlier technologies. To accommodate this, we will see an emergence of new solutions that either introduce or expand data protection to Kubernetes applications.

IT spending will rebound – security and hardware will be at the top of the list

Despite the economic turbulence brought on by the pandemic in 2020, we’ll see a five to 10% increase in general IT spend in the new year. Allocations will likely focus most on security, general system modernisations (backup, applications, cloud migrations, etc.) and refreshing hardware. In addition, organisations will take a look at what was on “hold” in 2020 to address IT spend that happens on an annual recurring basis.

For example, hardware should be refreshed every three years, and if the pandemic halted an organisation’s attention to hardware, it’s fair to say that will make its way to the top of the list in 2021.

Spiteri added the following predictions for 2021:

Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets to accelerate all things digital with China as their reference

China’s innovation in payments and e-commerce is a glimpse of the future for the rest of Asia. Cashless, contactless, video and online – everyone and everything is going digital in the new normal and nowhere have people been able to adapt to this mode of operating as China. 

The Mainland has been first to adopt mobile payments, to lead the way in app-based ecosystems like with WeChat and new online commerce models such as the revolutionary PinDuoDuo platform. Chinese banks are providing remote onboarding and electronic "know your customer" procedures (eKYC) for Chinese citizens to open accounts and trade stocks and conduct finance in Hong Kong, all without being in the city.

Advancing digital identity and digital trust enablers in Asia

The spotlight on data privacy, digital identity and data protection has intensified. Singapore and Hong Kong’s COVID track-and-trace technologies have highlighted the advancement of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and GPS to create virtual geofencing which can determine if citizens have left the known environment of their home, as can facial recognition and advanced sensor technology in China. These have all been highly effective but also created heated debates on data privacy and trust such as in Australia. 

Asia’s trust levels around data are relatively higher than Western counterparts. Could this lead to faster development of digital identity and digital bio-passports for a post-COVID landscape?

Asia set for increased digital integration to drive digital economies and society

China and APAC are expected to lead global GDP growth rates heading to 2021. A World Economic Forum study has shown that an estimated 60-70% of new value created in the economy over the next decade will be based on digitally-enabled platforms. This could set APAC countries to drive much broader and tighter digital integration for business and government, building more seamless business resilience, and further puts a spotlight on managing data movement, data protection and availability.