The Technology Radar is a regular update from the ThoughtWorks Technology Advisory Board to provide insights into current and emerging technologies and tools as identified by its global team of software engineers.
The one issue that is probably of greatest concern to IT executives is enterprise security. ThoughtWorks cautions that this remains a threat and that organisations need to raise their game in the face of the continued onslaught from all directions. This requires a holistic approach that combines security infrastructure, tooling and building automated test tools into deployment pipelines.
ThoughtWorks security experts highlight that the traditional approach of up-front specification and post-development validation is no longer relevant considering the ever-changing threat landscape. It is suggested that organisations look to inject security practices throughout the agile development cycle. This includes evaluating the right level of threat modeling up-front, including automatic, static and dynamic security testing into the build pipeline to include deeper testing, such as penetration testing, into releases in a continuous delivery model.
The continued and deeper integration of cloud services present a different set of challenges to organisations hoping to improve efficiencies and reduce costs. ThoughtWorks suggests this has given rise to the concept of "cloud as an architecture", which will have implications for organisations hoping to benefit from cloud-enabled collaboration and service delivery. This is particularly apt with regard to the reliance on application programming interfaces (APIs) that are not within the consuming organisation's control. Broken or discontinued APIs can be disastrous for organisations relying on these access points.
Continuous delivery, a technique that is radically changing how tech-based businesses evolve, amplifies the impact of cloud as architecture. With ThoughtWorks expecting architectural innovation to continue, it will become evident in trends such as containerisation and software-defined networking that provide even more technical options and capability.
The remaining trend that the ThoughtWorks Technology Advisory Board has identified is a significant shift in attitude from Microsoft. This is most evident in the software giant releasing large parts of its .Net platform and runtime as open-source projects on GitHub. This could have implications in paving the way to Linux as a hosting platform for .Net, that would allow the C# language to compete alongside the current bevy of JVM-based languages.
The Technology Radar report provides more detailed insights into particular strategies, tools and platforms that the ThoughtWorks Technology Advisory Board has identified as noteworthy. The full report can be viewed or downloaded.
