Top Information Technology Trends for 2021

2020 was quite the year! With the push to work-from-home, we saw technology innovations accelerate to new heights. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced technology and businesses to innovate. One of the hard-hit industries is local restaurants. How could local restaurants bring in customers when customers are afraid to be in public and facing capacity restrictions? If restaurants were not using technology like Postmates, GrubHub, or Uber Eats, you can bet they are now! 

Many businesses had never considered having their employees work from home. After the pandemic created a large push to work from home, many of those same businesses saw the value and cost savings by allowing people to work from home, from the freedom to the lower overhead costs. Many business networking we not intended to have all or many of the staff working from home, which stretched and stressed the system. 

The ongoing pandemic has impacted much of our lives, in many different ways. Technology is always changing, and here are some of the top trends we see for 2021. 

Cloud is King

Cloud technology had already shown its value for many businesses before the changing atmosphere of 2020. We recently wrote about Cloud solutions in our article “Top Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Cloud Backup Solutions.” Gartner, a leading research and advisory company, believes that cloud migration cannot wait. Gartner finds that database management is increasingly cloud-first or cloud-only (you may read their full report here). 

Cloud has become crucial for business. Cloud has improved security, ease of expansion, and is affordable. With the push to work-from-home or remote work, ease for employees to connect to the organizations’ network has become very important. We see this trend continuing as we move forward. 

Intelligent Automation

First off, what is intelligent automation?

“Intelligent Automation (IA) is a combination of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies which together empower rapid end-to-end business process automation and accelerate digital transformation (Automation Anywhere).”

The pandemic has created a digital initiative, pushing more business digital. We have seen education go primarily virtual. Museums, amusement parks, and more have created a virtual experience. All of which create new business models and additional revenue streams. Intelligent Automation affords a business the ability to automate several business processes that make sense, increasing processing speed and output consistency while freeing up time and resources for other priorities. 

Cybersecurity

Like the acceleration in technological innovation, we’ve seen a large uptick in cyber attacks. With the massive push to work-from-home, IT staff have been stressed. Many business networks were not intended for so many to access it remotely, which has created more vulnerabilities in networks and the need to stay vigilant with cybersecurity has only increased. 

Cybersecurity Mesh is a distributed architectural approach to scalable, flexible, and reliable cybersecurity control. We’ve mentioned the work-from-home push several times now, and with it comes the need for many assets to exist outside of the traditional security perimeter. What Cybersecurity Mesh allows for is the perimeter of the security to not be defined as a wall but as a more modular, and more responsive security approach. This approach allows an organization to more flexible define its perimeter around those accessing their network remotely. 

Artificial Intelligence of Things

Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) meet. There are four major AIoT segments: 

• Wearables
  • Things like Smart Watches, Wireless headphones, health trackers. 
• Smart Homes
  • These include thermostats, IoT Appliances, lights, smart TVs, Smart Speakers, and more. 
• Smart City
  • These include Smart energy grids, smart streetlights, smart public transportation. 
• Smart Industry
  • Autonomous manufacturing robots, automated supply chain management, predictive maintenance sensors. 

While all of AIoT will have large impacts on all of these segments, when it comes to Industry, AIoT will redefine automation. 

“While IoT is the digital nervous system, AI becomes the brain that makes decisions which control the overall system. The lethal combination of AI and IoT brings us AIoT – Artificial Intelligence of Things – that delivers intelligent and connected systems that are capable of self-correcting and self-healing themselves. (Forbes)”

5G

We’ve been hearing about 5G for many years now, and as is true with many things during the pandemic, the increasing demand for bandwidth has accelerated the advancement and deployment of 5G. As 5G advances, it will improve everything from video conferencing and virtual events to telemedicine and gaming. One side effect of 5G is that it may render lings like fiber-optic redundant. 

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has changed things in ways we never expected. The need for technology and connectivity has never been higher. With these increased needs, these are a few of the trends we see as we move through 2021. 

What trends have you found for 2021 and beyond?