The future is impossible to predict. In Oracle Modernization Solutions, written by two of the authors of this book, the book talked about the emergence of the Amazon cloud and data grids with respect to legacy modernization strategies. Some of these trends have continued to grow, but others stymied, such is the case with any predictions of emerging technologies. We have taken a look at several key developments that we are seeing within our customers and the industry as a whole.

There is no doubt that cloud computing is being adopted at a rapid rate by both large and small companies. We are seeing it happen all around us today. This is not possible without serious considerations to integration, consolidation, and migration. Cloud computing is all about shared resources. Shared resources are centralized resources that typically involve consolidation and migration projects in order to get to the shared resource, cloud model. Web services and the convergence in data, application, and process integration are not so much the future but are happening today. The future aspect of the trend toward web services for all integration needs, and process, application and data integration is whether these current trends will become de facto standards in the industry. We also looked at the current growth in mobile computing and how new information is being deployed to more powerful and ubiquitous devices. We merged this with the notion that mobile computing has enabled a new swarm of sensor data coming in for processing and analyses. Only time will tell how this will affect our very day-to-day life, but we do know for certain that it needs to be tightly integrated and consolidated for consumption.