Gartner highlights six key I&O trends for 2025 impact

Gartner has identified six key trends that will notably affect the infrastructure and operations sector by 2025.

Vice President Analyst at Gartner, Jeffrey Hewitt stated, "These trends give the opportunity for I&O leaders to identify future skills requirements and seek insights to help meet implementation requirements. They will provide the differentiation needed for enterprises to gain the optimal benefits from their I&O operations in 2025."

The first trend noted is "Revirtualisation/devirtualisation." Changes in licensing for certain vendor-based solutions have led infrastructure and operations teams to re-assess their virtualisation strategies, with options ranging from public cloud to distributed cloud and private cloud alternatives. "I&O leaders must inventory all current virtualisation implementations and any related interdependencies," explained Hewitt. "Evaluate alternative paths including hypervisors, hyperconvergence, distributed cloud, containerisation, private cloud and devirtualisation. Identify existing I&O skills and how those need to evolve to support top choices."

The second trend outlined involves security. "Security Behaviour and Culture Programs" (SBCPs) are becoming increasingly vital as corporate cybersecurity threats grow in complexity and frequency. These programs aim to reduce cybersecurity incidents through improved employee conduct regarding security measures, and involve organisation-wide policies to enhance cybersecurity effectiveness.

The third trend, "Cyberstorage", uses the concept of a data harbour where data is fragmented and distributed across various storage sites. This fragmented data can be quickly reassembled when necessary. "For cyberstorage to be successful, I&O leaders should identify the risks of costly and disruptive storage threats, combined with increasing regulatory and insurance expenses to build a business case for cyberstorage adoption," advised Hewitt.

"Liquid-cooled Infrastructure" makes up the fourth trend, with systems like rear-door heat exchange, immersion cooling, and direct-to-chip cooling becoming more relevant. These methods support the demands of new chip generations and artificial intelligence (AI) needs, and assist with flexible infrastructure placements. Hewitt remarked, "Liquid cooling has evolved to move from cooling the broader data centre environment to getting closer and even within the infrastructure. Liquid-cooled infrastructure remains niche today in terms of use cases but will become more predominant as next generations of GPUs and CPUs increase in power consumption and heat production."

Fifth on the list is "Intelligent Applications". These applications are expected to function intelligently, reducing the need for manual operations by understanding and adapting to user context and intent, thereby minimising digital friction. These applications aim to optimise processes and resource use while reducing the need for I&O intervention.

The final trend focuses on "Optimal Infrastructure", which encourages I&O teams to make the best infrastructure choices based on business needs across various deployment types. Hewitt highlighted, "These choices are ultimately aligned with platform engineering adoption. They allow I&O to align infrastructure choices with the business objectives of the overall organisation. They also facilitate the support and approval of business unit leaders and C-level executives."