“The only thing that is constant is change.”
— Heraclitus
A Decade of New Challenges
The rate of change is always about the same — as fast as possible — but the directions have shifted back on themselves. Twenty years ago, when I was starting out in IT, the focus was moving off centralized computing platforms with terminal interfaces in favor of multiple servers and client access. Now we’re shifting back to a centralized model. Back then it was mainframes and terminals; today it’s the cloud and devices (phones, tablets, laptops). With high mobile bandwidth becoming the norm, that makes sense.
Containerization
I thought containers would push out Virtual Machines within 5-10 years. That’s largely happening. Less to manage, easier to spin up, and Kubernetes handles orchestration at scale. Why troubleshoot a failed system when you can replace it in seconds?
I also speculated that containers would be an easy way to horizontally scale SQL Server Availability Groups — and added a parenthetical that this was probably a pipe dream. It still largely is. Azure SQL Managed Instance and containerized SQL Server offer partial solutions, but true horizontal read scaling across SQL AG nodes in containers remains complex and licensing-constrained. The load balancer idea isn’t wrong; the SQL Server specifics are just messy.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
IaC was clearly the next move. Why sit around clicking “Next” in a wizard when you can define a server or application with declarative code, check it into source control, and have it maintained, documented, and versioned automatically? The migration argument alone is compelling: when you need to move your entire organization from AWS to Azure (or back), IaC makes the second time dramatically less painful.
The downside I noted then still stands: people coming up now will lose some lower-level troubleshooting instincts. Though I’ll admit — I can’t remember the last time I had to think about COM port IRQ conflicts either. Skills atrophy at every generation.
Source Control
I genuinely don’t know why it took so long for source control to catch on outside of development. The learning curve is real, branching takes some getting used to, but working on the same code across multiple machines or with a team is just better with it. Full stop.
DevOps
I wrote in 2020 that “the ’20s are going to be the decade of DevOps — and by 12/31/29, DevOps will have been the default for years.” Five years in, that trajectory looks right. Spinning up servers by hand is already becoming a novelty rather than a standard practice. The pieces — IaC, containers, source control, CI/CD — are all components of DevOps. It’s happening whether you opt in or not.
Change is Change
Change is neither good nor bad in isolation — it depends on how you approach it. Regardless of how you view it, it’s going to happen. Use the new decade as a launch platform to retool your skillset, embrace new technology, and geek out while you learn. That advice holds as well in 2025 as it did in 2020.
Key Takeaways
- Containers have largely displaced VMs in new infrastructure — the prediction held.
- Horizontally scaling SQL Server across containers is still constrained by licensing and complexity. Managed cloud offerings help, but it’s not seamless.
- IaC is now table stakes for serious infrastructure work. If you’re still clicking through wizards, you’re accumulating debt.
- DevOps isn’t a role or a team — it’s the default operational posture for modern IT. Embrace it or get left behind.