It’s that time of year again, when industry experts and analysts predict what’s in store for next year. As the leading contributor to open source Postgres, we help organizations all around the globe harness the full power of Postgres, and we’ve seen a number of trends emerge in our work with clients over this past year. We believe these five trends below will take center stage and play a critical role in transforming our industry and world in 2024 and beyond.
Here’s what we see for the coming year:
1. Accelerated movement to open source from legacy/commercial databases
Open source database licenses started to outpace commercial database licenses back in 2021, and this trend shows no signs of slowing. In a recent survey by Red Hat, 98% of IT managers recognized the business benefits of using enterprise open source now or in the future, and 80% of those who currently use open source say they plan to increase their use of it.
Why the acceleration to open source? In their white paper, the Fourth Annual State of Corporate Technology 2023, EDB’s Principal Solution Engineer Tom Rieger and Platform 3 Solution’s Director of Solution Engineering Andrew Marsh outline survey results that show the shift toward open source technology is driven by cost savings (63% of respondents), plus factors like innovation (60%) and improved terms and conditions (59%). This research shows that price is not everything—there’s also the additional need for innovation to drive digital transformation, and for the flexibility to use the technology today in a way that will minimize friction tomorrow.
Why Is Open Source Thriving?
Red Hat states that enterprise open source software has a significant role to play in supporting IT modernization, with nearly half of their survey respondents agreeing that a top benefit for their business of using enterprise open source is the ability to take advantage of emerging technologies including AI, containers and edge computing.
Open source database management solutions like EDB Postgres are the ideal launching pads for digital transformation, offering the greatest flexibility in how enterprises unlock the power of data plus the robust functionality required for enterprise-level performance. As the largest contributor to Postgres, EDB is best positioned to bring what is needed to transition and establish workloads off legacy, single-vendor databases like Oracle, SQLServer and IBM DB2. A complete set of tooling to bring modern levels of security, monitoring, performance, resiliency all together at the best price is the new-normal and expected in database workloads.
2. Increased adoption of AI and machine learning technologies
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, says artificial intelligence could be the most profound technology in human history, even more so than fire and electricity.
Small companies and large enterprises alike are recognizing this potential, and have made AI adoption a strategic initiative. A full 43% of IT leaders surveyed in Red Hat’s 2023 Global Tech Outlook report say big data and analytics are their company’s top funding priorities over the next 12 months.
A number of factors are contributing to the rapid growth of AI, such as the massive increase of data/information (as much as 181 zettabytes by 2025 according to Statista). The democratization of pre-trained machine learning (ML) models is another factor. ML models, especially large language models, were previously out of reach to organizations without the time, money, and expertise to invest in developing them – but all that has changed now that pre-trained models are readily available. Access to the compute power needed to run these pre-trained models is also key, and cloud has made computing and running ML models more attainable and affordable.
“Combining the synergy of AI with PostgreSQL will result in endless opportunities,” says Postgres expert and EDB’s Field CTO Lætitia Avrot. “Especially when it comes to enhancing the extensibility and flexibility of PostgreSQL to make it even greater and relevant for even more domains and use cases. AI's evolution, from Reactive AI to Limited AI, opens the door to enhanced data analysis capabilities, and it seems to me that Postgres is the ideal tool for making this future a reality.”
3. The rise of cloud databases
Enterprises are finding that database management systems hosted in a cloud computing environment increase levels of flexibility, scalability, performance and cost-effectiveness.
This is why Gartner predicts that by 2026, 75% of organizations will adopt a digital transformation model predicated on cloud as the fundamental underlying platform. Gartner forecasts that worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services will grow from $563.6 billion in 2023 to $679 billion in 2024, an increase of 20.4%.
The use of cloud will rise alongside the use of AI, as cloud is the ideal foundation for the development and deployment of AI applications. “Organizations deploying generative AI services will look to the public cloud, given the scale of the infrastructure required,” says Sid Nag, VP analyst at Gartner in their recent report.
At EDB, we’ll be helping organizations move their PostgreSQL databases to the cloud in 2024, with tools and support for every stage of the journey. In the Fourth Annual State of Corporate Technology 2023, a telling sign of the acceptance of cloud is how survey participants answered the question, “Is your organization taking a ‘cloud-first’ approach for all future projects?” Seventy-eight percent said ‘YES’/’Getting there.’ Furthermore, when asked “if the cloud has lived up to the hype,” over 60% strongly agreed.
4. Heightened focus on security
Security was the top IT funding priority in 2023, according to Red Hat’s Global Tech Outlook report, with 44% surveyed saying that it was a top three funding priority. We expect security to continue to be a top funding priority in 2024 as well, and believe many organizations will invest in dedicated teams focused on securing their open source assets and adopt layered database security models that address physical and network security, database access management and more.
As the use of open source software grows, regulatory bodies are recognizing the need for guidelines and standards to ensure security. In the US, Congress has noted the positive impact of open source along with the potential security concerns, and is considering the Securing Open Source Software Act bill to advance open source security. While the bill is focused on the federal government and companies operating critical infrastructure, it could well be a foundation for future industry and government-led open source security initiatives.
Industry collaboration will be essential for tackling security challenges, and we envision security teams will be collaborating even more closely with the open source community in 2024 and beyond.
5. Bridging the talent gap
Skillset or talent gaps will likely be a top digital transformation barrier for companies in 2024. Twenty-six percent of CEOs interviewed in Gartner’s 2023 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey cited talent shortage as the most damaging risk for their organization.
While external recruitment efforts can help to address this shortage, The Linux Foundation’s 2023 State of Tech Talent Report emphasizes that it will be critical for organizations to focus on upskilling their workforce in emerging technology areas such as cloud / containers, cybersecurity, and AI / ML in order to remain competitive. This report states that providing opportunities to work on open source projects can also be a way to effectively attract and retain top talent.
A combination of upskilling and outsourcing may be one of the most effective ways to empower your DBA team and support your open source Postgres solutions. At EDB, we offer free on-demand Postgres training (private instructor-led training is also available) to help you get your team up to speed on the latest Postgres certifications. We also offer Remote DBA Services to provide you with a depth of expertise and 24/7 proactive management you can’t get anywhere else.
With the right balance of outsourcing and upskilling, you can build your dream DBA team at your price point and on your terms to drive digital transformation.
We believe the accelerated movement to open source, increased adoption of AI/ML, rise of cloud databases, the heightened focus on security and efforts to bridge the talent gap will be five of the top trends shaping the tech landscape next year. Organizations that understand and embrace trends like these will not only be ready for the future, they’ll be leading the way.
What are your predictions for 2024? How do you see open source Postgres and the cloud transforming your business next year? Drop us a line to discuss and discover new ways to adapt to evolving technology trends and maintain your competitive edge today and tomorrow.