Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019.  Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Contributed by Christian Beedgen, George Gerchow, Ben Newton, executives from Sumo Logic

AI Ethics, Kubernetes and the Rise of the Chief Privacy Officer

Sumo Logic is a a leading cloud-native, machine data analytics platform that delivers continuous intelligence, and its team closely monitors present market trends and forecasts what is coming the future as well.

Here are the 2019 technology predictions from three Sumo Logic executives.

Christian Beedgen:

Ethical Intelligence >> Artificial Intelligence

Our fascination with the use of computing power to augment human decision-making has likely outgrown even the tremendous advances made in algorithmic approaches. In reality, the successful use of AI and related techniques is still limited to areas around image recognition and natural language understanding, where input/output scenarios can be reasonably constructed, and that will not change drastically in 2019. The idea that any business can "turn on AI" to become successful or more successful is preposterous, no matter how much data is being collected. But the collection of data to support humans and algorithms continues and raises important ethical questions and is something we need to pay close attention to over the next few years. Data is human and therefore is just as messy as humans. Data does not create objectivity. It is well established that data and algorithms perpetuate existing biases and automated decisions are -- at best -- difficult to explain and justify. Appealing such decisions is even harder when we fall into the trap of thinking data and algorithms combine to create objective truth. With greater decision-making power comes much greater responsibility, and humans will increasingly be held accountable for the impact of decisions their business makes.

Programming Is A Distinguishing Skill For Information Workers

Automation continues to be the key to success at scale. Real-time has become too fast for humans to track in the age of big data. Fair or not, we will classify people into two buckets: those who know how to program, and those who don't. With the rise of cloud service providers, those in IT who don't know how to program are increasingly finding themselves without tasks and responsibilities. This is the flip side of agile, DevOps and DevSecOps. The need to scale and react in real time requires automation -- something programmers know how to do. This is not an elitist vision; successful IT employees do not require Ph.D.s in distributed systems from Stanford -- in fact, the majority of programmers today are self-taught. However, they do need to know how to program in the broadest sense, from traditional software development to shell scripting. As we move toward a world of more automation, programming has become a core skill, even if it happens mostly in Jupyter notebooks, sitting on top of layers of abstractions programmed by others. We used to say developers are the new kingmakers, but in 2019 and beyond it'll be more accurate to swap the term ‘developers' out for ‘programmers.'

George Gerchow:

The Rise of the Chief Privacy Officer.

With the mad sprint to meet the GDPR deadline, this past year was all about the data protection officer (DPO). As a continuation of that effort, 2019 will be focused on moving privacy even further up the chain of command - to the C-suite - making it of utmost focus and priority for organizations that have a vested interest in protecting their user's data. GDPR and privacy have become the new way of life and so we're going to see privacy join security for a seat at the table as more and more state and international privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act and Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD) emerge. Eventually, the two will be so closely intertwined that perhaps we'll even see titles inclusive of chief security and privacy officer (CSPO) in 2019, and beyond.

Cloud Vulnerabilities Abound.

The biggest vulnerabilities in 2019 will be cloud-based attacks executed on a nasty, stealth scale. Attackers now possess the wherewithal to target any major cloud provider by slipping in under the radar with a small hardware device or chip, and carrying out sophisticated exploits on a massive scale like nothing ever seen before. This is particularly frightening if you imagine how a single attack on just one AWS region could cripple thousands of users and compromise their mission-critical data in a matter of seconds. Tech vendors will also have a target on their back for cloud-based attacks because of the sheer amount of customers they serve daily. As history has repeatedly shown, data is a gold mine for malicious and nation-state actors, and the siege won't slow down in 2019. Industry cloud giants and security vendors will need to work together to implement a security by design strategy if we want to harden our defenses and prevent another debilitating security debacle from hitting the headlines.

Ben Newton:

Serverless Grows, Kubernetes Slows.

Serverless is going to move into the mainstream, attracting two distinct groups of people: those who need computing beyond what containers can currently provide and those who don't want the overhead of containerization. We saw this trend begin in 2018, in which AWS Lambda adoption grew from 24 percent in 2017 to 29 percent in 2018. And we expect that number to spike in 2019.

Containerization is near the top of its hype cycle and will soon race down into the proverbial trough of disillusionment. Kubernetes is not enough on its own, but will continue to see steady growth due to its media attention and the number of services that provide managed or native K8s. That said, we can expect to see an inevitable loss of enthusiasm as more organizations trend toward serverless options moving forward.

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About the Authors

Christian Beedgen, CTO

As co-founder and CTO of Sumo Logic, Christian Beedgen brings 18 years experience creating industry-leading enterprise software products. Since 2010 he has been focused on building Sumo Logic's multi-tenant, cloud-native machine data analytics platform.

George Gerchow, CSO

As Sumo Logic's Chief Security Officer, George Gerchow brings over 20 years of information technology and systems management expertise to the application of IT processes and disciplines. His background includes the security, compliance, and cloud computing disciplines.

Ben Newton, Director Product Marketing

Ben Newton has spent the last decade and a half of his working life in the world of IT. He is machine data analytics lead for Sumo Logic and part of a team focused on a new approaches to machine data/big data analytics.