Here are my prediction for the new year of technologies that will make a big splash in the enterprise. This list shows what I think will have greater enterprise adoption with production workloads, moving past the kicking the tire stage. If you have not heard about one or more of the things listed below then you should crawl out from underneath your rock.

Containers - (Virtualization)

No need for the VM vs Container crap because the virtual machine (VM) are here to stay. Containers will not replace the VM in the near term since they’re only supported on Linux today. This is expected to change soon and when it does, container adoption will skyrocket. Enterprise adoption for containers are highly dependent on Windows support. If your enterprise consists mostly of linux systems then your time is now.

Software Defined Storage (SDS) - (Storage)

It seems that every storage vendor is doing software defined storage in one way or another. In either case programmable storage is the future whether it’s tied to hardware or not. This new year we’ll see greater use of SDS in the enterprise with more automation and orchestration of infrastructure.

Private Cloud - (Cloud)

The enterprise needs a better way to automate and orchestrate infrastructure. The best way to evolve from just virtualization is to adopt a private cloud platform. The list below shows just a few cloud platforms that are ready for the enterprise.

• Microsoft Cloud Platform
• VMware vCloud Suite
• CloudStack / Citrix CloudPlatform
• OpenStack

Hybrid Cloud - (Cloud)

The hybrid cloud model brings the best of both worlds together. The enterprise needs the speed, agility and infinite scale of public cloud infrastructure with the control and security of on premise infrastructure. This model may include a tight integration between the public cloud and private cloud platform allowing for seamless migrations of VMs from private to public or vice versa.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Microsoft Azure
• VMware vCloud Air

Cloudy Applications - (Applications)

Enterprise developers will start developing home grown cloudy applications. The applications will be developed with a different mindset that takes automation, scale out and public cloud infrastructure and services to heart. The application installation process will also change from the typical manual “Next, Next, Next” era to speed up deployments.

I could have added much more to the list but this is a good start. Some of you can already check a few of those off your list. It may be wishful thinking for a couple of these predictions but we’ll see at the end of 2015 how I did.

p.s. - Happy Year!