Feature
Trend-setting Technologies
Enterprise architects, or whatever title they may have been given in your company, can match new technology to the needs of evolving business capabilities. According to Forrester:
Enterprise architects are in a position to take note of the opportunities and ensure that the right business and technical subject-matter experts come together to find the value in new approaches to business problems.
The report, The Top 15 Technology Trends EA Should Watch: 2011 To 2013, outlines technologies based on a technology’s combined impact on business and IT, its newness and its complexity. By fitting technologies into 4 categories, the following list was compiled:
"Empowered" Technologies
Based on Forrester’s book Empowered, this category outlines key technology trends driven by an increasingly tech-savvy workforce.
- SaaS and cloud-based platforms become standard
- Collaboration platforms become people-centric
- Customer community platforms integrate with business apps
- Apps and business processes go mobile on powerful devices and faster networks
- Telepresence gains widespread use
Process-Centric Data and Intelligence
From real-time business analytics and real-time data quality services to content analytics and social network analysis, these technologies will help companies make sense of unstructured data that can play a critical part in daily operations.
- Next-generation Business Intelligence takes shape combining real-time access with pervasiveness, agility and self-service
- Analytics target text and social networks
- IaaS finds a broader audience
- Master data management matures
Agile and Fit-to-Purpose Applications
Technologies that will improve application flexibility have been around for while, but these three technologies are predicted to have the largest impact on applications' ability to change.
- Business rules processing and policy-based SOA move to the mainstream
- BPM will be Web-2.0-enabled
- Event-driven patterns demand attention
Smart Technology Management
Virtualized infrastructure resources are more prevalent than ever, and as a result, EAs will need a repository for planning artifacts which will help them analyze and understand exactly where business impact is going to come from.
- System management enables continued virtualization
- IT embraces planning and analysis tools to manage the future
- Client virtualization is ubiquitous
Get In the Driver's Seat
Forrester’s list isn’t designed to make IT departments scurry frantically to adopt these technologies. Instead, it’s aimed at making IT departments as empowered as their employees. By understanding what, how and why specific technologies are trending, it can lend insight about the expectations put forth by employees and customers alike. This list isn’t a mandate and only time will tell what catches on, but by being a driver, instead of wayward passenger, companies can begin to feel more in control of the technologies they implement.
