6 modern data stack trends to look for in 2021
TechRepublic spoke with dozens of experts who said the influx of companies interested in doing more with their data is only increasing.
Data has become the name of the game for almost every enterprise as companies and organizations look for more ways to stay ahead of the curve and identify past mistakes.
TechRepublic spoke with industry leaders and experts who discussed six topics and ideas that will emerge in 2021 related to the modern data stack.
Debanjan Saha, vice president of data analytics at Google Cloud, recalled, “I was a network engineer when the big internet revolution happened and I feel really lucky to be in the midst of this cloud and data revolution.”
Saha added, “I think the next year and next five years are going to see digital transformation driven by the data revolution.” He suggested the average life of a Fortune 500 or S&P 500 company is getting shorter because businesses are evolving and updating faster than ever. “The only way to adapt and change is to use data and look around the corner using predictive models and AI/ML. These factors differentiate the winners and losers in the new digital economy.”
Forrester vice president and principal analyst Michele Goetz said data management is emerging from an analytics first strategy to an outcomes based strategy, meaning data is now dynamic, stream-oriented, and orchestrating through processes and machine learning models.
“Forrester sees the data stack extending beyond the data fabric into data networks. Data management will be centralized and hyper-local to create in-moment intelligence and experiences,” Goetz said. “Solution architectures increasingly rely on messaging, gateways, APIs, and microservices across an ecosystem and collections of capabilities. Swarm intelligence and smart city use cases are examples of this. Network architectures become tomorrow’s data architecture.”
George Fraser, CEO of data integration company Fivetran, said the recent wave of simplification in data management was a very important trend that would continue into 2021.
He explained that just five years ago companies interested in better managing large amounts of data like Netflix had to do a ton of heavy lifting, hiring legions of data engineers and investing millions in impressive open source technology.
These days, much of that can be accomplished through subscriptions to one of the high-end data warehouses.
“Data management is getting easier. Technology often goes the other way, it gets more complicated. But we’re seeing a winnowing and I think that’s significant and a good thing. The cost of the fundamental components has come way down but it’s also true that people are doing more with data,” he said.
“A few analysts can accomplish what five years ago Netflix would have had to invest $10 million in, which is cool. It’s making it accessible to companies with less sophistication and companies that aren’t on the coasts or hiring the fanciest teams with the best LinkedIn profiles. More like mere mortals can do this stuff, which is a good thing.”
Donal Tobin, CEO at data integration company Xplenty, said more and more large companies are showing interest in the cloud, especially for things like analytics.
“What we are seeing is multicloud is definitely of interest as well. Having the ability to spin up your platform within any of the big cloud players is becoming more and more of a requirement,” Tobin said. “Customers want that and they don’t like the idea of being tied into any one solution with that or one platform.”
The industrywide shift to cloud was being made, EnterpriseDB CTO Marc Linster explained, because cloud allows for rapid flexing of capacity and cuts down on lengthy provisioning cycles as well as upfront license investments. The ability to flex capacity to align with needs is key to quick responsiveness as part of a digital transformation strategy.
