I think it’s very important to be ahead of the curve when it comes to trends in technology. In the same way as an investor is successful by jumping on a trend early, IT career professionals need to do the same in order to keep their skills relevant so they won’t be left behind. Here is a list of trending technologies that will be big in 2021.
Linux and Open Source Software:
Linux has become huge in the last several years. When I started seeing Microsoft change its tune and embrace Linux back in 2015. I knew that there was going to be a huge change.
Almost everything on the internet and the public cloud runs Linux. For those who come from a Windows world, I would highly recommend at least having some basic understanding of Linux.
Linux adoption opened the door for open-source software. In the past open-source software was primarily used by home users, hobbyists, and hackers but today we are seeing enterprise organizations embracing it as well.
One of the biggest benefits driving this move is no vendor lock-in or licensing costs which has appealed to a lot of organizations.
Containers (Docker & Kubernetes):
Containers have been around for a while but they are still a relatively new phenomenon for most enterprises. Unless you were in a software shop it’s not likely your organization has embraced containers but that is starting to change.
In my opinion, container adoption in 2021 is where VMware adoption was back in 2005. At that time the early adopters of VMware were more cutting-edge organizations that understood the technology and were willing to jump in.
Containers for software developers are great because they allow for software isolation and provide a very clean and predictable environment.
Most organizations are still figuring out their container strategy and how to migrate their older more monolithic applications to containers.
So skills in Containers will become more and more necessary as organizations begin to adopt containers.
Microservices:
Microservices are becoming very popular among software developers because they break up a larger application into smaller units called microservices.
These smaller microservices allow teams of developers to independently work on a specific microservice.
Each microservice has a very specific task and can be coded in a different programming language to fit a specific use case.
Microservices also allow developers to scale and update individual software components much easier than you can with traditional monolithic applications.
Building microservice-based applications allows organizations to adopt an agile framework and bring features more quickly to meet the demand of their customers.
Infrastructure as Code (IoC)
Infrastructure as Code or IoC allows you to document your environment using human-readable configuration files like JSON or YAML to define and program the individual compute and network elements within your environment.
What makes IoC so powerful is that your entire infrastructure is consistent across all devices based on your configuration.
This prevents configuration drift which is the cause of most IT-related issues and over time has a big impact on operations costs.
DevOps and CI/CD
DevOps has taken the world by storm for the last several years.
DevOps is a process or methodology that is changing how organizations deliver IT-related services to their users or customers.
DevOps’s main goal was to break down the walls of bureaucracy and make IT function more as a single team and less like individual silos.
DevOps started because a lot of organizations dealt with the challenge of Shadow IT because IT couldn’t stand out of their own way.
Today organizations are starting to see the financial impact of DevOps when compared to the traditional way of doing things.
In the end, DevOps allows IT and Development to work better together in delivering software and services to their users and customers.
REST APIs
In the last few years, APIs have become all the rage but APIs aren’t exactly new.
In the past, most APIs tended to be proprietary and fairly complex to implement and were relegated to software developers.
With the introduction of REST APIs, there is now a more common standard of lightweight APIs that leverages HTTP protocol.
REST APIs is what everyone is adopting from Web Services, Applications, and Websites.
This opens up the door for integration between different systems that share the ability to communicate using REST.
REST APIs aren’t relegated to just software developers. A lot of IT infrastructure vendors are exposing the full functionality of their devices via a REST API.
In other words, anything you can do in a GUI or CLI you can modify via a REST API.. This allows for Administrators to automate the administration.
Python
Python has exploded in popularity and has become the most popular language in the last several years for its ease of use and flexibility.
It’s the only programming language that I know that has been adopted by professionals outside the software development industry.
Python has a large number of benefits. It’s easy to use, a large community has lots of support, and tons of libraries that extend the functionality of the language.
If you struggled learning programming in the past I would highly recommend giving it another try. It’s a skill that has a lot of demand in the job market and will make you that much more valuable.
Conclusion
Change has been and will always be a big part of the information technology industry. It’s important for IT professionals to make sure their skills don’t become obsolete by embracing technology and not fearing it. I recommend that you do your own research and decide which technologies are the most relevant to you and your career goals.
