What’s in Store for Tech in 2022? Offleash Clients Share Their Predictions

As we settle into 2022, the technology trends that will define the year are starting to take shape.

Each year, Offleash clients share tech predictions we can expect to see play out in the next 12 months. From increasing supply chain attacks to the adoption of technologies like graph databases, here are tech trends expected to take center stage.

Supply chain attacks sightings will peak
“I believe that supply chains will peak in 2022 due to insights from both sides of the coin. For example, on the attacker’s side, cybercriminals will be drawn to supply chain attacks more than ever because of the ease of operation under the ‘black-box’ that those systems provide. With that said, from the defender’s side, I foresee that we’ll see more and more solutions, detection mechanisms and practices for different parts of the supply chain that will be present at more enterprises, leading to better detection chances.” 

— Moshe Zioni, VP of security research at Apiiro, via SC Media

The need for local storage at the edge will continue to grow
“There will be an increase in demand for edge computing. This increase is being fed by the need to power a growing number of base stations, the fixed transceivers that serve as the main communication point for mobile technology as 5G (and even 6G) grow in popularity. Also, as the number of self-driving cars increases, so does the need for local storage, as well as growth in remote processing power in the car itself. Edge will lead infrastructure and even cloud growth in the coming year.”

— Hao Zhong, CEO and co-founder of ScaleFlux, via BetaNews

Organizations will build applications that are both reliable and secure, or risk failure
“No company can afford to focus on either observability or security—you must do both. No one is going to use an application that’s reliable but not secure, or secure but not reliable. From a developer and enterprise perspective, we’ve got to raise the bar on both observability and security at the same time.”

— Erez Barak, VP of product development at Sumo Logic, via Database Trends and Applications

Data engineers will adopt tools originally developed for data scientists
“Data engineers will increasingly use AI-based tools in their day-to-day work. To support this, more analytics vendors will incorporate AI programmatic capabilities in their platforms, opening up new opportunities for data engineers. This will also blur the line between data engineering and data science, providing new opportunities for innovation.

— Matthew Halliday, co-founder and executive VP of product at Incorta, via Datanami

Real-time data will become democratized 
“Every other business is now feeling the pressure to take advantage of real-time data to provide instant, personalized customer service, automate operational decision-making, or feed ML models with the freshest data. Businesses that provide their developers [with] unfettered access to real-time data in 2022, without requiring them to be data engineering heroes, will leap ahead of laggards and reap the benefits.”

— Dhruba Borthakur, co-founder and CTO of Rockset, via VentureBeat

Graph databases will be a must-have component of the data landscape
“As the volume of data created and replicated throughout the enterprise continues to increase, scalable graph technology has become the critical link between massive amounts of data and key business insights. The graph will become a major competitive differentiator among the companies in multiple industries — from financial services and healthcare to retail and manufacturing.”

— Richard Henderson, technical director at TigerGraph, via ZDNet

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will get the people-process-tools makeover it needs
“Organizations are collectively pouring billions into intensive digital transformation initiatives, but often with mixed results at best. This is often because of a lack of visibility and focus on people and processes. Through a more balanced people-process-technology approach, transformation success rates can be improved dramatically.”

— Jon Knisley, principal consultant for process and automation excellence at Fortress IQ, via The Enterprisers Project

Multi-cloud will become a must-have 
“The focus on hybrid cloud will wane in 2022, while decision-makers look to multi-cloud deployments, which will mature into something seamless and make a real impact on data estates. The hybrid cloud got lapped in the last 12 months. Enterprises already use nearly three public and three private clouds apiece. Hybrid cloud is still a thing, but the requirement for multi-cloud takes the conversation to the next level.”

— AB Periasamy, CEO at MinIO, via Datanami

2021 was an amazing year in tech as digitization continued to advance at warp speed. The New York Times reported that U.S. startups “raised $330 billion, nearly double 2020’s record haul of $167 billion,” and, “more tech startups crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold than in the previous five years combined.” This growth trend is expected to carry into 2022, as the VC landscape continues to heat up. We’re looking forward to seeing how the predictions above unfold throughout this year.

Kelly has more than 20 years of marketing and communications experience, specializing in media and analyst relations, digital demand generation and account based marketing. As vice president at Offleash, Kelly helps define media strategy and execution that drives measurable business results. Contact Kelly here