COVID-19 hascatalysed the speed and depth ofthe world'sdigital transformation efforts, according to F5'slatestState of Application Strategy (SOAS) report.This year's report strongly underlines how the need to improve connectivity, reduce latency, ensure security, and harness data-driven insights is intensifying. It also points to an elevated interest in cloud, as-a-service solutions, edge computing, and application security and delivery technologies.'The COVID-19 pandemic has vastly accelerated a global digital transformation that was already underway. Progress that might normally have taken a decade has leapt forward in a single year,' says LoriMacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5.'In a short time,more organizations than ever havemodernized and distributed applications'and the application security and delivery technology solutions that support them'closer to users. Addto that theuse ofedge computing,and we're starting to seeincredible momentumforthe emergence of truly adaptive applications that cangrow, shrink, defend, and heal themselves based on the environment they're in and how they're being used.'App modernization efforts double and AI adoption triplesSince the last SOAS report,the adoption rate of AI and machine learning, a marker of late-phasedigitaltransformation, more than tripledto 56%.Furthermore, 57% of respondents embraced digital expansion, which is a 37% increase from last year. The latter shows an intensifying focus on business process automation, orchestration, and digital workflows, stitching together disparate applications to create seamless digital experiences. The same objective is being achieved through the use of APIs.There was also aneye-catching133% annual rise in respondents saying theyaremodernizing internal or customer-facing applications, with77% now doing so.On top of that,two-thirdswereusing at least two methods to create modern workloads(the combination of traditional and modern app components that result from modernization).Of the respondents claiming to useonlyusing one method, 44%,saidthattheywereenabling modern interfaces, either via APIs or components such as containers.A mere11%, mainlytechnology organizations,are exclusively refactoring applications.In other forward-looking developments,over half of respondents saidthey now treat infrastructure as code.The report showsthatorganizations using this approach are twice as likely to deployappsmore frequently, even when using automation. They are also four times more likely to have fully automatedapplication pipelines, and twice as likely to have more than half of their application portfolios deployed using fully automated pipelines.Architectural trends and shiftsThe vast majority of organizations will continue to manage both traditional and modern applications and architectures. This expectation is supported by the 87% of survey respondentsclaimingthattheynowjuggle both'an11%increaseover2020.Nearly half of allorganizations'30% more than last year'said theyaremanagingat leastfive different architectures.According toalmosthalf ofthesurvey respondents, the pandemicwas the main factor inacceleratingmovement to the cloud and SaaS.More than two-thirds of respondents (68%) are now hosting at least some of their application security and delivery technologies in the cloud. Simultaneously, organizations are positioning themselves to address the architectural complexity that results from adding SaaS and edge solutions, maintaining on-premises and multi-cloud environments, and modernizing applications.Application security and delivery solutionswere also in the SOAS spotlight.The critical roles these enabling technologies playincustomer experience and service level agreements (SLAs) arenowrecognized by nearly fouroutof five respondents.SaaS-based security was identified as organizations' top overall strategic focus over the next two to five years.Growing ambitionsatthe edgeEdge computing is also set to attract plenty of attention in 2021. As many as 76% of organizations surveyed say they have implemented or are actively planning edge deployments, with improving application performance and collecting data/enabling analytics as the primary drivers. Moreover, 39% believe that edge computing will be strategically important in the coming years, and 15% are already hosting application security and delivery technology at the edge.'Organizations are definitely starting to look at the edge with more purpose,' MacVittie explained.'Cloud data centres, while supporting ubiquitous access, are only slightly more distributed than on-premises data centres. By contrast, the edge enables organizations to deliver applications closer to users. In many ways, the edge is just the next step outward in an expanding universe of distributed applications, with benefits'and drawbacks' aligned with those of multi-cloud strategies. Data analytics represents a key edge use case, enabling the insights required for digital transformation initiatives.'Another edge use case highlighted by the SOAS report is the distribution of modern workers. More than a third (42%) will support a fully remote workforce for the foreseeable future. Only 15% plan to require all employees to return to the office.OrganizationshavedatabutlackinsightsandskillsMore than half ofSOASrespondents believe they already have the tools they need to report on the health of high-priority applications.Nevertheless,an alarming95%saythey are missing insights from their existing monitoring and analytics solutions.Respondents agreed that the data collected by theirtools is primarily used for troubleshooting, followed by early warnings about performance problems.Worryingly, amere 12% report the data back to business units, whereasfewer than24%of organizations use data and insights to watch for potential performance degradations. By contrast, when it comes to monitoring components that modernize apps, nearly two-thirds of respondents (62%) are measuring performance in terms of response time.Conscious of a need to do better, over 80% of respondents said that data and telemetry are 'very important' to their security plans, and over half are 'looking forward' to the beneficial impacts of AI.Survey respondents also flagged platforms that combine big data and machine learning (also known asAIOps) as the second most strategic trendinthe nexttwo to fiveyears.At the same time,that enthusiasm could be blunted by a lack of emerging, relevant skillsets in the market.This is particularly true for thoseidentifyingAIOpsastheir top strategic trend. Half of those respondents citeda paucity ofskilled professionals as theirnumber onechallenge.Theroadahead'Only organizations with the right combination of insights and automation will be able to sort through overwhelming data, recognize looming availability and performance issues before they occur, and act quickly enough to prevent them,' adds MacVittie.'Until then, many won't be able to take full advantage of their progress in digital transformation or generate additional speed toward AI-enabled businesses.Ultimately, this will require an application strategy that includes application security and delivery technology solutions that follow the apps, even as deployments continue to be spread among multiple environments positioned nearer to users and at the edge.'Edited byJenna DelportFollowJenna Delporton TwitterFollowIT News Africaon Twitter
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