This month, we start off with a look back at 2014 and some predictions for the year ahead, including Pivotal’s own predictions for developers and data scientists. Then we look back at the Sony Pictures cyber attack that made top headlines at the end of the year, as well as other recent stories about breaches and security in app development. Within the mobile app space, we see that Apple paid out $10 billion to app developers on the Apple App Store, and that enterprise applications are a huge growth opportunity for developers. There are a few compelling articles shared on agile practices and an intriguing presentation by Martin Fowler about the impact of social environment on software development. Lastly, we cover key announcements, perspectives, and thought leadership offered in the PaaS and devops space, including the Linux Foundation’s support of Cloud Foundry as an official project.
2015 Predictions & 2014 Review
It only seems right to start 2015 with a review of predictions for the new year, as well as consider what’s transpired in 2014. Starting off is Pivotal’s own observations about what we’ll be seeing in the new year for developers and data scientists—in particular, we see big things shaking out in the Apache Hadoop® and container markets, with SQL being this year’s killer app for Apache Hadoop® and mobile and data science driving big changes in application development. At a higher level, worth considering is Amy Webb’s thoughts about Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore for 2015. Anything that makes user experience better is interesting to us, particularly a call for improvements in 2015. There are also a number of worthwhile thoughts predicting what’s next for the analytics and big data market in 2015.
Our favorite 2014 year in review articles are LinkedIn’s blog post about hottest skills with data science and enterprise infrastructure leading the way, and New Relic’s year in review post about mobile development.
Recommended Reading:
- Pivotal’s Top Predictions for the Developer in 2015
- Pivotal’s Top Predictions for Data Science and Big Data in 2015
- The Tech Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2015
- The UI Inventions We Want to See in 2015
- 6 Predictions For The $125 Billion Big Data Analytics Market in 2015
- The 25 Hottest Professional Skills of 2014
- 11 Things That Changed Mobile Development in 2014
Featured: Security & Breaches
There is no doubt, we all heard about how 2014 was littered with data breaches—783 or 15 breaches a week according to one source. This points out the seriousness of cybercrime and cyber security. Some of the biggest breaches included eBay, JPMorgan, The Home Depot, and others while recent headlines included the cyberattack on Sony Pictures, which also impacted Snapchat. Domain name overseer, ICANN announced that personal information was compromised in December, and German researchers found ways to exploit the global cellular network whereby hackers could intercept voice and text. The issues are widespread and critical to business operations, leading to several legal measures taken by the U.S. government in response. We all must make security a higher priority, and companies across the software industry, such as Docker are addressing the concerns in various ways. In PaaS, Pivotal is actively working to improve and explain security capabilities available within Cloud Foundry.
Recommended Reading:
- Identity Theft Resource Center Breach Report Hits Record High in 2014
- Top Data Breaches of 2014
- Sony CEO Breaks Down Hack Response and Sony and Snapchat Devastated by Data War
- ICANN Hacked
- German Researchers Discover a Flaw that Could Let Anyone Listen to Your Cell Calls
- If 2014 Was The Year Of The Data Breach, Brace For More
- Taking Security to the Next Level—Application Security Groups
Mobile
Mobile platforms are making even more inroads into the enterprise in 2015, and two of the most interesting announcements come from Apple and IBM. First, iOS app developers have earned more than $10 billion in revenue in the past year and $25 billion since the App Store opened in 2008. In addition, IBM has created 10 (and promise 100) next-generation iOS apps for the enterprise, crossing multiple industries and providing capabilities like a retail sales assistant. At Pivotal, we continue to see how mobile is top of mind for so many businesses, and announced ways of delivering mobile apps faster, doing testing the right way, and avoiding common pitfalls with best practices while many work to figure out mobile challenges like deep linking.
Recommended Reading:
- Mobile Platforms in Use 2010-2014
- The Next Gold Rush: Enterprise Apps
- Apple’s App Store Developer Revenue Hits $25 bn as Apple Touts Job Creation
- Apple and IBM Launch First Wave of Codeveloped iOS Apps for the Enterprise
- The Mobile-First World: Deliver Mobile Apps Faster
- Insiders Guide to Mobile App Development
- 3 Steps to Doing Mobile App Testing the Right Way
- Apps Everywhere, but No Unifying Link
Agile Development
At Pivotal, we are big believers in Agile development methodologies and rounded up some of the more interesting articles we’ve seen recently. Pair programming is still an element of collaboration appreciated by developers for improving productivity while others, as Martin Fowler points out, are frustrated with agile because their companies are struggling to do it right. Those who make it a priority to get agile right, like CoreLogic, are developing innovation labs and global centers of excellence while working with Pivotal platforms and Pivotal Labs to do so. We also ran across two great articles by our teammates—a cool description of a “Day in the Life” of a Pivotal Labs Product Manager and how well-formed user stories are captured with Gherkin and Cucumber.
Recommended Reading:
- Two Keys to Superior Code Quality: Pair Programming and Mentoring
- Martin Fowler on Agile
- Formation of CoreLogic Innovation Labs in Collaboration with Pivotal and Corelogic Case Study with Pivotal Cloud Foundry
- A Day in the Life of a Product Manager at Pivotal Labs
- How to Write Well-Formed User Stories
PaaS & DevOps
In the world of developer platforms and automated deployment, the transition from 2014 to 2015 continued to show a lot of progress. Late in the year, Cisco launched a new product based on microservices that sit on top of Cloud Foundry and Openstack. As well, the Guardian shared their own methods for moving from 25 to 24,000 deployments per year through continuous deployment. EMC’s Chief Strategist penned a great background on some of the driving forces for software development, mainly that every business is now digital.
For Pivotal, we saw the milestone where Cloud Foundry officially turned into a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project and have continued to share thought leadership on the topics of how PaaS drives value, how microservices and PaaS work together, and how to evolve devops.
Recommended Reading:
- Under the Hood: Cisco Collaboration Cloud
- Delivering Continuous Delivery, Continuously
- 3rd Platform Gets Real
- Cloud Foundry Foundation Launch
- Driving Value from an Open Cloud Platform
- Made for Each Other Microservices and PaaS
- Evolving DevOps: The Benefits of Paas and Application Dial Tone
Editor’s Note: Apache, Apache Hadoop, Hadoop, and the yellow elephant logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries.
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