Tech trends 2023
From Multicloud to Metaverse
A whole range of exciting developments in the tech world await the industry in the new year. Dr. Thomas King, CTO of DE-CIX, has identified five trends that will shape the interconnection business and the networked world in 2023.
Trend 1: Connecting clouds better
The cloud is now an integral part of almost every company's IT infrastructure. However, the cloud can also become a risk if you focus on just one - the so-called "cloud concentration risk". To avoid becoming dependent on just one provider, more and more companies are opting for a multi-cloud strategy. This also has the advantage that companies can select the best offers from different providers in order to put together an individual cloud service portfolio. However, such a distributed infrastructure also presents new challenges and encourages the creation of silos. Individual applications or workloads could be "trapped" in just one particular cloud. In addition, some providers offer proprietary cloud applications that are only accessible from their own platform. To work efficiently in this complex environment, cloud-to-cloud connectivity is key. In 2023, we will see the spread of cloud routers on interconnection platforms. They will provide high-performance, low-latency and high-bandwidth connections between the various clouds. This improves interoperability between cloud environments and enables data to be synchronized, even if it is stored with different providers in different applications. This gives multi-cloud a further boost, as the structures are easier to manage and offer additional protection for critical company data.
Trend 2: 5G continues to grow
Unlike previous generations of mobile networks, 5G is not a single technology. Instead, it is a series of different standards that encompass various features on several levels. These include the frequency used, modulation and multiplexing as well as latency. Even though 5G has been a media topic for years and many smartphones now have the standard, its widespread introduction is still at an early stage. For example, as companies begin to use and commercialize 5G on a large scale for the Internet of Things, the technology stack will evolve to meet growing commercial demands. 5G is a real milestone in the history of technology: it can enable peak data rates of up to 20 Gbit/s, with up to one million connected devices per square kilometer. Data transmission takes place with a latency of just one millisecond. With these performance values, 5G has the potential to revolutionize the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers from the automotive industry such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, VW and Ford, for example, are relying on their own 5G campus networks for industrial IoT applications. Although the full potential of 5G will only become apparent within the next ten years, we can expect further exciting use cases as early as 2023.
Trend 3: Resilient connectivity
Networking is essential for digital companies. However, the threat of power or telecommunications network outages could cut them off from important data. Against this backdrop, building a redundant infrastructure is becoming increasingly important. In the new year, companies will be increasingly concerned with how they can protect their connections from outages through redundancy. By building multiple layers of redundancy, it is possible to design a company's digital infrastructure for critical data streams in such a way that single points of failure are avoided. Redundancy here refers to various areas: Using servers, routers and other network components of different designs and from different manufacturers. It also involves ensuring the geographical distribution of data storage across multiple data centers and the use of redundant, non-overlapping fiber optic lines to connect the various locations, as well as business relationships with different (cloud) providers to avoid concentration risks.
Trend 4: Code-based networks
Digital infrastructures are becoming ever more important for companies, but also ever more complex and difficult to manage, which poses increasing problems for IT teams. This is where Network as Code comes into play. This technology allows network architectures to be mapped as software using programmable components. This allows all the advantages of a software solution to be used, such as repeatability, versioning and continuous configuration automation. As part of the Tellus project, which is part of the European infrastructure initiative Gaia-X, such an environment is being created that covers the entire value chain of interconnection services. It is a software-based network with integrated software instances and homogeneous interfaces that goes beyond the boundaries of individual providers and remains independent of the public Internet, although it uses its infrastructure. The TellusX software is installed on devices as well as on components of cloud and network services. All Tellus-enabled devices, providers and services can communicate with each other automatically, make their requirements known and confirm compliance. This enables secure, high-performance and automated connections between specific locations and to cloud service providers that are configured for the respective use case - without any manual configuration effort. The first versions of TellusX should be ready for use in 2024.
Trend 5: Metaverse and co. in the starting blocks
CTO Dr. Thomas King of Internet exchange operator CD-CIX: "For today's science fiction to become reality in the coming decades, we all need to be equipped with high-performance VR devices."
© DE-CIXThe Internet of the future will definitely look different to everything we know today. Users will move around completely differently. There are many terms for this, from web3 to metaverse to immersive Internet. What they all have in common is that they all involve enormous technological connectivity and the highest demands on data transmission networks as well as a latency in the single-digit millisecond range that is adapted to human perception. For today's science fiction to actually become reality in the coming decades, each of us must be equipped with high-performance VR devices that are interconnected in a fine-meshed network of high-performance networks to ensure the synchronous and seamless transmission of video, audio, sensory and cyber location data as well as our physical location. A singular approach by individual providers is not enough here; in the infrastructural implementation of the metaverse, collaboration between different providers is the key to building a future-proof high-performance Internet.
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