2021: A Year of Breakthrough Technologies

As the pandemic continues, supply chain delays have left wholesalers and retailers struggling to keep up with demand. 2021 was the fifth hottest year on record, and businesses are pressured to achieve environmentally sustainable business models.

On the labour end, remote work transitioned from a stop-gap pandemic solution to our new normal. However, for those working on the pandemic's front lines as well as the software engineers tasked with keeping the wheels of commerce rolling, job burnout was so prevalent that 2021 became the year of the "Great Resignation".

The most innovative tech trends of 2021

However, 2021 wasn't all bad – many new innovative tech trends are emerging to help organizations navigate the rapidly changing business environment of the modern age.

Aruba CX Switching

COVID didn't cause the strain on our legacy systems, but it did bring the crisis to a tipping point. In a 24-hour world, businesses simply can't afford downtime. At the same time, ageing legacy systems can't safely handle the numbers of connected devices and exponentially-growing needs.

High-performance wired switching connectivity is no longer enough. Aruba switches let you remotely monitor your network in real-time.

The Aruba 6100 CX family of switches is engineered to be simple, secure, automated, programmable, and always on. Aruba access switches are ranked the industry's best. Not only do the Aruba CX switch models help you manage today's needs, but also Aruba CX switches help you plan for future growth.

Aruba switch models reduce troubleshooting times, prepare your company for new technology, and simplify IT.

Quantum computing

For those unfamiliar with quantum computing, it may sound complicated or deep into Big Tech. However, for business leaders who feel constrained by system capabilities, it could be time to look to the not-too-distant future with this innovative new system. For the most part, today's computers are binary; they store data in one of two states (0 or 1). Each 1 or 0 is called a bit. Quantum computers, on the other hand, can store data using subatomic particles such as photons and electrons.

Quantum computer data is measured in qubits (quantum bits), and qubits don't follow our earthly rules of physics, at least not in a way non-physicists interpret the temporal world.

- Superposition

Qubits can be both 0 and 1 simultaneously, which is why quantum computers are so powerful. The state of being in two places simultaneously is called superposition. Thanks to superposition, a quantum computer can conduct a great number of calculations at once. However, once the qubits are measured, they collapse into classical 1s or 0s.

- Entanglement

You've probably heard of identical twins who, despite being in separate locations, experience physical ailments or thoughts at the very same time. We don't know whether quantum physics can solve the mystery of twin power, but qubits are very similar. The phenomenon, called entanglement, is when a pair of qubits are in a single quantum state. If the state of one of the qubits changes, the other will also instantaneously change.

Perhaps you've heard of "Moore's Law." In 1975, Intel Co-Founder and CEO Gordon Moore speculated that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit would double every two years. Moore's Law is often also applied to overall computational and data growth. While Moore predicted that growth would start to taper by 2020, it hasn't.

Regardless of how you interpret Moore's Law, each generation of processors is twice as fast and has twice the memory of the previous generation. However, conventional computing requires twice the number of bits to double the speed and memory. Thanks to entanglements, adding qubits provides an exponential increase in capability.

- Decoherence

Qubits, however, are fragile, a condition quantum researchers call decoherence. Heat, or sound vibrations, for example, can throw off computations, which is why some Big Tech companies cool their superconducting circuits to temperatures that are even colder than deep space. Some trap atoms on silicon chips in ultra-high-vacuum chambers. Given qubits' persnicketiness, it's easy to see that the technology isn't quite ready for a typical server room.

However, if scientists can manage decoherence, quantum computing promises agility and scalability. In addition, the speed to address many of the world's most critical issues, such as weather prediction, drug development, and financial modelling, or our current supply chain issues, in a fraction of the time it would take classical computing. Let's say that quantum computing represents an entirely new paradigm with its own set of possibilities and constraints.

HPE Alletra

Moore's Law doesn't specifically address data explosion, but currently, the world's data doubles every two years. By 2025, however, it's predicted that data will double every 12 hours.

The exponential increase in data is one of the reasons enterprises are turning to the cloud, the industry gold standard in providing agility, scalability, and resource elasticity, to store their data. However, CIOs and CTOs may find that their departments are limited by monolithic architecture's speed and scalability restraints without cloud-native data architecture.

Data storage isn't the only challenge in managing data explosion. Going from raw to usable data is laborious and time-consuming. One solution is to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help gather data and remove bits that shouldn't be there, such as duplicates, inaccurate data, and outliers. AI can also predict and prevent problems before they arise.

The HPE recently introduced the award-winning Alletra, which powers data from the edge to the cloud. HPE Alletra is one of several cloud-native data infrastructure HPE products. HPE Alletra is a flexible but simple Software as a Service data management that runs on any app and meets any requirement.

• Access and utilize data on-demand without you having to maintain expensive infrastructure
• Seamlessly run any app and meet any SLA
• Realize full hybrid cloud potential

There's no doubt that 2021 was a challenging year for IT departments that are attempting to do so much more with so much less. However, before quantum computing is ready to revolutionize the computer industry, HPE networking products and Aruba switch models are poised and prepared to let your network safely and securely adapt to all of your current business needs with unlimited scalability and connectivity.