5 Trends Reshaping IT Infrastructure In 2023

Architecting your infrastructure in service of application and data will determine how you’ll help your organizations compete in 2023—and beyond.

Applications and other digital services are only as good as the data that fuels them, and data’s ability to fuel applications depends on the infrastructure that helps shuttle it across networks.

Data is also growing at unprecedented rates—doubling from 2022 to 2026 according to IDC estimates—thanks to the arrival of 5G networks and connected devices. This data proliferation poses some logistical challenges for enterprise networks.

Data has gravity, meaning there is a tremendous pull from applications and digital services that depend on data. The laws of physics apply to data; the larger your data sets become, the harder they are to move.

Accordingly, applications that fuel enterprise systems must be closer to the data, which means organizations must move compute capabilities closer to where that data is generated.

To make this happen, organizations are building out infrastructure that supports data needs both within and outside the organization—from data centers and colos to public clouds and the edge. As a result, IT infrastructure is becoming more decentralized.

IT leaders must carefully weigh how to place application workloads. And as they do so, CIOs should mind these five key trends that will reshape IT infrastructure plans next year—and for the foreseeable future.

Related: The Innovation Index, Dell’s latest research based on responses from 6,600 business and IT leaders across the globe

Trend #1: Intentionality Becomes the Defining Trait of Multicloud Strategies

With organizations overseeing an ecosystem that might include data centers, colos, public clouds and edge locations, the IT landscape has become more complicated than ever. For many organizations, the accumulation of distributed systems has created a messy multicloud environment. Organizations need to rethink their multicloud topology to account for existing and future workloads. Multicloud is the defining infrastructure trend for 2023 and beyond. And the new topology is a multicloud by design model, which is characterized by placing workloads where they make the most sense for desired outcomes. The days of winging it and flinging workloads around systems are numbered.

Related: What is Multicloud by Design and Why Does It Matter?

Trend #2: Edge Computing Emerges as a Central Focus for Leading Organizations

What does computing at the edge look like? Intelligent. Sensors, actuators and IoT gateways with data analytics capabilities, are becoming more pervasive across enterprises. The proliferation of these devices can’t be understated: More than 50% of enterprise data will be created and processed outside the data center or cloud by 2025, according to Gartner. The edge holds vast potential for analytics that generate business insights in real-time, but deriving value from that data often means processing it as close as possible to where it is generated. And this is happening: Fifty-two percent of IT leaders surveyed by Dell said they were increasing their investments in edge workloads over the next six to 12 months.

Trend #3: AI and ML Serve the New Era of Data-Hungry Applications

Businesses want to become smarter and run on systems of insight rather than systems of record. This has accelerated the adoption of AI and machine learning across every industry, which Forrester Research and Deloitte believe will become foundational in enterprises in 2023. Importantly, edge devices are increasingly incorporating AI/ML capabilities as industries strive to move beyond data persistence—where data resides—to data activation—harnessing information to drive insights.

Trend #4: HPC Hits the Mainstream, Extending Beyond Research and Development Departments

For decades industries such as healthcare, government and life sciences have leveraged high-performance computing capabilities, in which supercomputers and computing clusters solve advanced computational problems using sophisticated models that help make predictions. However, an increasing number of HPC workloads are entering the mainstream. Many employ AI/ML capabilities in addition to traditional simulation and modeling, and HPC provides the horsepower to generate, process and analyze modern workloads.

Trend #5: Cloud-native Development Fuels Modern Applications Across the Multicloud Ecosystem

Multicloud comes full circle with cloud-native development. As the IT world shifts toward a distributed model, an increasing number of organizations are building cloud-native regardless of where they’re currently running. Many are taking advantage of managed or open-source Kubernetes to help them deploy containerized apps at scale. An API-led, composable microservices model allows for repeatability, as well as the ability to quickly shift development as business priorities change. The ability to pivot quickly is critical, paving the way for innovation.

Key takeaway: It’s never too soon to start planning for tomorrow’s infrastructure needs

There’s no magic bullet for tackling these trends, but there are simple questions you can start asking now. Have you designed the multicloud landscape that drives the right outcomes for you? Can you scale, secure, and easily manage multiple edge locations? Do you have the infrastructure you need in the right locations to drive innovation?

One way to start is by embracing as-a-Service consumption models that allow you to pay for what you need when you need it. You can also manage infrastructure yourself or entrust others to manage it for you depending on what makes sense for your business.

Building infrastructure to deploy modern application workloads in a multicloud world is forward-thinking today. But it will be table stakes to compete tomorrow.

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