Cloud computing and big data are some of the biggest changes that are transforming the IT landscape.
This is according to Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO of EMC.
Speaking at EMC World, in Las Vegas, on Monday, Tucci said transformation is not new to the IT industry. However, he stressed that the big changes facing the industry present opportunities. For example, companies that are able to leverage and monetise the benefits of big data will enjoy new revenue streams.
Pat Gelsinger, president and COO of EMC Information Infrastructure, said big data and cloud computing informed the three themes underlying this year's conference and indeed EMC's strategy. These were: Transform IT, Transform Business and Transform Yourself.
Transform IT
Cloud computing has developed from being a fluffy concept to becoming a significant deliverable, said Gelsinger. He said the company's 'Transform IT' theme relates to how cloud computing is transforming business.
According to EMC, cloud computing has reached mainstream adoption.
Factors driving cloud adoption, as highlighted by Gelsinger, include increased flexibility offered by the infrastructure as a service model, as well as reduced costs and increased agility that is offered by cloud computing.
According to Tucci, the decision CIOs are facing is no longer whether or not to move to the cloud, but rather what form of cloud best suits their needs.
Tucci also emphasised that EMC sees hybrid clouds as being the model that will ultimately dominate the cloud computing space, with organisations using a mix of private and public clouds. He added that this hybrid model will also take a dynamic form, where organisations choose between public and private clouds on a daily basis, depending on workflows.
Transform Business
EMC's 'Transform Business' theme is informed by the ways big data is transforming business, Gelsinger said.
One of the results of big data, according to Gelsinger, is the need to utilise pools of information, whether these are structured or unstructured.
Tucci suggested that new classes of applications will emerge, where the “killer” applications of the future will be predictive, real-time data analytics.
Tucci and Gelsinger pointed out that cloud computing has also resulted in the need for dynamic security. According to Tucci, in the future, many security functions will be automated based on predictive behaviour. For example, he said, when analytics detect that authorised users are not following their usual behaviour - perhaps when they access the corporation's server from an address in a different country - the system will automatically block this access.
Gelsinger pointed out that cloud computing and big data are transforming both the IT and business landscapes. However, he said that while cloud computing conversations are happening at the CIO level, big data conversations are happening with all businesses across all sectors.
He said the opportunities presented by big data will be around monetising the value of big data for many different business sectors, for example health and finance.
Transform Yourself
In order to meet the challenges that arise from the move to cloud computing and the emergence of big data, new skills need to be developed, said Gelsinger. According to him, this informs EMC's 'Transform Yourself' theme.
Gelsinger spoke about the need to enable new sets of skills, arguing that data scientists will become increasingly relevant as a result of big data.
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