The demand for highly qualified IT professionals outpacing supply now requires cybersecurity specialists to rethink their service offerings as these "once cutting-edge" technologies become mainstream.
By: David Amory
As we approach 2025, the IT landscape continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace. Technologies that were once cutting-edge are now becoming mainstream, while new innovations are reshaping how businesses operate.
2024 Trends
For IT service providers, staying ahead of these changes is not just beneficial—it's essential for today’s modern enterprise to protect their internal infrastructures and of course, their customer base. But what have we learned as 2024 comes to an end?
Familiarity with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain can improve threat detection and incident response capabilities. Cybersecurity experts should seek training programs that cover these advanced technologies to stay relevant.
Obtaining industry-recognized certifications such as CompTIA Security+, Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) can validate expertise and attract potential employers.
Rise of AI and Machine Learning
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming central to both offensive and defensive cybersecurity strategies. Organizations are increasingly using AI for real-time threat detection and automated response systems, enhancing their ability to combat cyber threats effectively.
However, the same technology poses risks as attackers leverage AI for more sophisticated attacks.
Ransomware threats persist
Ransomware remains a dominant threat, with organized groups employing ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) models that lower the barrier for entry into cybercrime. Critical sectors such as healthcare and finance are particularly vulnerable, prompting organizations to bolster their incident response and disaster recovery plans.
Decentralization of cybersecurity
The trend towards decentralization is shifting cybersecurity decision-making away from centralized IT departments to individual business units. This fragmentation presents challenges in maintaining cohesive security policies across organizations.
Increased regulatory compliance
The regulatory landscape is becoming more stringent, with new mandates focusing on data privacy and AI ethics. Organizations must adapt their cybersecurity frameworks to meet these evolving compliance requirements, including GDPR and CCPA.
Talent shortage
The cybersecurity workforce continues to face a significant skills gap, with demand for qualified professionals outpacing supply. Organizations are prioritizing training and development initiatives to upskill existing staff while seeking new talent
Rethinking Your IT Roadmap for 2025
As we look ahead to 2025, the need for organizations to rethink their IT roadmaps has never been more critical.
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping core business operations
Rapid advancements in AI are reshaping business operations, with enterprise spending on generative AI skyrocketing by 500% in 2024, reaching nearly $14 billion.
This surge reflects a broader trend where AI tools have become accessible to small and medium-sized businesses, enabling them to enhance operations from customer service automation to advanced data analytics.
Cloud computing is beginning to shift
The cloud computing landscape has matured, with a shift towards multi-cloud strategies and improved cost optimization, making sophisticated solutions available to a wider range of organizations.
Beef up your cybersecurity frameworks and stay proactive in emerging tech adoption
The integration of these technologies into cybersecurity frameworks is vital for early threat detection and response, particularly as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to expand.
As businesses prepare for the complexities of 2025, embracing a proactive approach to technology adoption—focusing on innovation, seamless integration, and robust security measures—will be essential for achieving resilience and competitive advantage in an evolving digital landscape.
Here are 6 things IT managed service providers can focus on in 2025 in remaining competitive and vigilant to their existing (and yet-to-be-discovered) clientele:
1. Prioritize Robust Cloud Management Tools
A recent report by Gartner indicates that worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is forecasted to grow 21.5% to reach $723.4 billion in 2025.
By 2025, hybrid and multi-cloud approaches will be the norm rather than the exception.
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, these are two distinct approaches to cloud computing that organizations can adopt to optimize their IT infrastructure.
A hybrid cloud strategy combines both private cloud and public cloud services. This approach allows organizations to maintain sensitive data and critical applications on a private cloud (on-premises or dedicated data centers) while leveraging the scalability and cost-effectiveness of public cloud (third-party platforms) resources for less sensitive workloads.
The integration between the two environments enables consistent data and application movement, facilitating flexibility and control over IT resources. By enhancing expertise in integrating various cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), IT providers can offer comprehensive solutions that allow seamless data and workload movement between cloud networks.
Unlike hybrid clouds, a multi-cloud strategy involves using two or more public cloud services from different providers. This approach enables organizations to select the best services for specific tasks without being locked into a single vendor. In other words, this reduces dependency on any single provider, allowing organizations to choose the best service for each workload.
A major distinction between multi-clouds and hybrid clouds is that multi-cloud strategies do not incorporate private cloud resources. Businesses that need to ensure high availability and disaster recovery can use multi-cloud setups to replicate data across different environments.
2. Educate Your Clients on MFA/2FA Protection
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication (2FA), will be a standard security measure spanning many of today’s emerging industries, including artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and digital assets/digital finance.
When assisting your clients, consider offering a range of MFA options such as biometrics, hardware tokens, and authenticator apps (Duo Mobile, Google Authenticator, etc. — and implement MFA across all critical systems and applications.
But don’t forget to educate them along the way so they don’t become overwhelmed and “check out.”
Zero-trust Security Approaches
With the rise of remote work and distributed teams, zero-trust security will become increasingly important in providing clients with security that extends beyond the traditional network perimeter.
For this reason, it’s important to implement "never trust, always verify" principles, regardless of business size. This approach assumes that threats can exist both inside and outside an organization's network, thus requiring strict verification for every user and device attempting to access resources, regardless of their location.
In offering continuous authentication and authorization solutions to your existing (and prospective) client base, you can help garner long-standing relationships and rapport as these infrastructures continue to evolve and adapt.
Data Encryption
Robust encryption will be crucial for data protection, which includes: end-to-end encryption for data in transit, at-rest encryption for stored data, and homomorphic encryption for data processing in untrusted environments.
3. Consider “Hybrid cloud” models
Over the next year, it’s safe to predict that “Hybrid cloud” will be the preferred computing model for many organizations. To address and prepare for these infrastructural changes, cybersecurity and IT specialists should focus on:
Seamless integration between on-premises and cloud environments
Consistent security and governance across all environments
Tools for workload portability and data synchronization
Edge Computing Integration
Edge computing will play a crucial role in reducing latency and improving real-time processing. This distributed computing model refers to the practice of processing data at or near the physical location where it is generated, rather than sending it to a remote data center for processing.
By situating computing resources closer to the "edge" of the network, edge computing enhances application performance and minimizes delays associated with data transmission over long distances.
For clients, service providers can offer comprehensive solutions that also address security and management challenges specific to these types of edge environments.
Cloud-native Architectures
Cloud-native development will also become increasingly important, especially as it concerns 5G technology and mobile networks.
This architectural style emphasizes the use of cloud services and technologies to build scalable, resilient, and manageable applications. This opens up new possibilities for cloud services, specifically the demand for more sophisticated network solutions that leverage 5G’s high speed and low latency. By exploring new use cases enabled by 5G, such as advanced IoT applications, providers can identify new strategies to address growing security challenges that will inevitably present themselves in the coming year.
4. Develop tailored cloud migration roadmaps for each client
This includes conducting a comprehensive assessment of existing infrastructure(s), which should come packed with detailed, high-level migration strategies tailored to each client’s needs.
One thing that many consultants and IT firms often miss the mark on is providing clear timelines and milestones for migration projects, and presenting them in an easily digestible format for their clients to understand and visualize. While it may require some extra time on your part, it’s low-hanging fruit for further solidifying client trust and your professional reputation.
Not all migration strategies are the same
Different migration approaches will be suitable for different scenarios. You may find that rehosting (lift and shift), for example, simply entails moving applications without any major changes, or re-platforming requiring only make minor changes in taking advantage of cloud capabilities — whereas refactoring adds a layer of complexity to the strategy in redesigning applications to be cloud-native.
5. Microsoft 365 Administration and Deployment
The largest segment of Microsoft 365 users falls within the 25-34 age range, which accounts for approximately 31% of users, further demonstrating the platform's appeal to younger professionals who are increasingly reliant on digital collaboration tools.
The company’s reported revenue of $62 billion at the end of Q2 2024, revealed nearly 55% of this revenue coming from its cloud services, which include Microsoft 365. IT providers and cybersecurity specialists should be adept at cloud-based deployment of Microsoft 365, specifically when utilizing the Microsoft 365 admin center for management.
Implementing cloud-based deployment for faster and more efficient rollouts and leveraging Microsoft Intune for device management and app deployment aren’t bad ideas either.
With approximately 28.75 million monthly users and around 958,333 daily users, Microsoft reported in January that Office 365 had surpassed 400 million paid seats, marking a notable increase from previous years.
Help Your Clients Stay Updated Without Disruption
A few suggestions in helping clients keep Microsoft 365 up-to-date include implementing automated update processes, providing change management services to minimize disruption, and offering training on new features and capabilities.
For organizations with existing on-premises infrastructure, consider using Configuration Manager for hybrid deployments. To help ensure a smoother transition to cloud management, consider leveraging co-management capabilities.
For organizations without Configuration Manager, providers can still utilize an Office Deployment Tool (ODT) for customized deployments. They can also offer additional guidance on creating configuration files for various deployment scenarios.
6. Performance Optimization and Troubleshooting
Providers should consider implementing “network segmentation” for improved security and performance, while ensuring an efficient use of network resources by executing bandwidth optimization strategies.
- Design logical network divisions based on function and security requirements
- Implement software-defined networking (SDN) for flexible segmentation
- Use micro-segmentation in cloud environments for granular control
A few examples of “bandwidth optimization” techniques include:
- Implementing Quality of Service (QoS) policies
- Using traffic shaping and prioritization techniques
- Leveraging WAN optimization technologies
If you or someone you know is looking to enhance your network and security infrastructures, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. For more information, please visit https://silvercloud.technology/.