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Software is modernizing. We could call it the process of so-called digital transformation (but please let’s not), or we could call it the shift towards increasingly cloud-native infrastructures being used to power always-on applications for enterprise use and indeed for consumer use and even gaming.
The trouble with software modernization is that it always wants to be a contemporary version of itself i.e. what was modern last year or 18-months ago may not be modern this year. By next year, today's modern tech could be consigned to the legacy junkyard. We exaggerate to make the point, things don’t usually happen that quite fast, although the rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) last year was absolutely that meteoric.
Quantifiers, qualifiers & identifiers
As we squint and attempt to look forward to identify the next major tech trends, the IT industry is fond of running reports, surveys and test analysis initiatives to provide us with the quantifiers, qualifiers and identifiers (plus a few occasional outliers) we need to form our perception of IT change.
As a case in point to illustrate the swinging nature of this barometer, Red Hat’s recent ‘State of Application Modernization Report’ driven in association with research firm Illuminas points to new movements. Where we could still have been forgiven for thinking that enterprise application containers (smaller pieces of composable technology inherently suited to flexible cloud computing environments) to still be the dish of the day (as they were last year), this analysis wants to suggest that things have progressed. To comply with the always-on world of connected cloud, the report says that the majority of respondents no longer define software modernization as a question of containerization; instead, they place Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines are the top of the agenda.
Next year, it’ll containers again, with a splash of generative AI, probably.
Also keen to gauge the mood and stay one step ahead of the software modernization agenda is multi-cloud platform company Nutanix. Citing the ‘findings’ presented in its sixth global Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report (which seeks to measure enterprise cloud adoption), this year’s study points to an increasing adoption of hybrid multi-cloud models, which are forecast to double over the next one to three years.
What is hybrid multi-cloud?
As obvious as it may sound to some, hybrid multi-cloud in this context of course means hybrid (as in some private on-premises cloud + some public cloud services supplied from a Cloud Services Provider’s (CSP) hyperscaler selection pack) and some services straddling both worlds. It also means multi-cloud i.e. services coming from more than CSP (Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Services and the secondary tier of cloud providers that start with big enterprise vendors like Oracle, IBM, a selection of China-based cloud providers such as Alibaba and so on), which is a variegated purchasing decision typically based on price, local data governance legislature, technical nuances and more.
The entire panoply of cloud differentiation could also include poly-cloud where a monolithic application shares some of its workloads (plural) out across different clouds. By whatever definition we use, cloud delivered in these formats is what represents software modernization in the context of this story and it is a process undertaken because IT decision makers are facing new pressures to modernize IT infrastructures due to drivers including AI, security and sustainability.
AI is number #1
As organizations continue to grapple with the complexities of moving applications and data across environments, the Nutanix report stresses the use of hybrid multi-cloud infrastructure. It says that security and innovation were the top drivers for moving applications from one environment to another over the past year. As AI takes center stage for businesses, respondents identified increasing investments to support AI strategy as their number #1 priority, followed closely by investment in IT modernisation.
“Whether it be because of AI, sustainability, or security imperatives, IT organizations are facing ever-increasing pressure to modernize their IT infrastructure quickly,” said Lee Caswell, senior VP for product & solutions marketing at Nutanix. “Some 80% of survey respondents are planning to invest in IT modernization, with 85% planning to increase their investments specifically to support AI. What this year’s ECI study [suggests] is that organizations need to support the technologies of tomorrow by future proofing their IT infrastructure today. Hybrid multi-cloud continues to emerge as the infrastructure standard of choice because of the flexibility it provides to support traditional Virtual Machine (VM) and modern containerized applications and movement between clouds and on-premises.”
The suggestion here is that infrastructure modernization is becoming an imperative, driven by AI, modern applications and data growth. Respondents identified increased investment to support AI strategy as their they indicate running AI applications on their current IT infrastructure will be a 'significant' challenge. In order to mitigate and overcome this challenge, organizations are prioritising IT modernisation and edge infrastructure deployments i.e. at the edge compute tier that runs in the Internet of Things (IoT), which can facilitate faster processing and access to data. This, in turn, can help improve their ability to link data from multiple environments to give better visibility into where data resides across their sprawling ecosystems.
IT sustainability, for real
According to Caswell and the Nutanix team, “IT teams aren’t just planning their sustainability programs, they are actively implementing them starting with IT modernization. Almost all (88%) ECI survey respondents agree that sustainability is a priority for their organization. However, unlike in previous years’ reports where action was limited, many organizations indicate they are already taking active steps to implement sustainability initiatives, with the most common being modernising IT infrastructure. This is a fascinating result, and one that shows the direct impact of IT infrastructure on sustainability.”
Nutanix mentioned data sprawl and thus the need for software modernization to also encompass a degree of data modernization strategy. Returning to the Red Hat analysis, the firm reminds us that another common definition is data modernization, commonly described as updating and improving an organization’s data infrastructure, tools and practices to meet the evolving needs of data-driven business operations and analytics.
“It’s reasonable to assume that prepping for AI and ML is an important rationale for thinking about application modernization in these terms. Data modernization also comes into play as part of modernizing the data exchange between applications and their components as they are updated, such as for distributed data in edge applications,” notes the Red Hat analysis.
Whichever software modernization barometer we hinge onto, ransomware protection will always feature. Ransomware and malware attacks will of course remain existential threats to modern enterprises seeking to implement software modernization initiatives. The Nutanix analysis in this space reminds that with the cat-and-mouse game between malicious actors and enterprise security professionals set to continue throughout 2024, we still live in a world where data protection and recovery remain a challenge. Almost three-quarters (71%) of ECI respondents who experienced a ransomware attack reported taking days or even weeks to restore full operations
Seeking equilibrium
What these market reports and studies perhaps leave behind as a lasting flavor or sentiment is the struggle that IT directors have when attempting to reinforce software modernization practices. They need to seek an equilibrium driven by security and innovation, application and data movement. Then, they need to find the equilibrium between developer tools being lightweight enough to be sustainable computing entities, robust enough to provide secure computing and usable enough to be considered a positive contribution towards Developer eXperience (DX).
All of that… and we haven’t even mentioned the users yet? Remember the users? The people using the applications and data services inside these software modernization cycles also need to get a great experience and be safe, functional and compliant as well.
Software modernization is modern today, but it will be even more so tomorrow - to be continued…
