Gartner has recently identified the top ten strategic technology trends for 2015.

In this year’s report, the analysts describe their focus this way: “Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to the business, end users or IT, the need for a major investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. These technologies impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives.”

In the document, the company highlights the overarching strategic tech themes as “the merging of the real and virtual worlds, the advent of intelligence everywhere, and the technology impact of the digital business shift.”

Cloud computing plays an outsize role, demonstrating just how the transition to the Cloud has impacted all aspects of technology. And it’s not just “the cloud” as a trend, but the means in which the Cloud has become the underlying communication, storage and interaction infrastructure facilitating nearly all of the tech trends.

Here is a summary of a break down published by TechRepublic.

1/ Computing everywhere (first year on list)

Mobile device proliferation is an obvious trend. Gartner thinks there will be a shift of focus from devices to how the user and device interact in different environments and contexts.

2/ Internet of Things (fourth year on list)

Gartner has chosen to reemphasize its four basic “usage” models: Manage, Monetize, Operate, and Extend. It also reiterates: Do not focus too closely on the IoT, but take in the entire picture.

3/ 3D printing (second year on list)

Gartner believes that 3D printing will continue to grow at an incredible rate for the foreseeable future.

4/ Advanced, pervasive, and invisible analytics (first year on list)

The amount and variety of data will demand more advanced analytics than are currently available. A Gartner researcher said, “The value is in the answers, not the data.”

5/ Context-rich systems (first year on list)

According to Gartner, “Context-aware security is an early application of this new capability, but others will emerge.”

6/ Smart machines (second year on list)

The combination of advanced analytics and context-rich embedded systems will evolve into smart machines. Prototypes of autonomous vehicles, advanced robots, and the like will bring in the most disruptive smart-machine era in the history of IT.

7/ Cloud/client computing (sixth year on list)

“Cloud is the new style of elastically scalable, self-service computing, and both internal applications and external applications will be built on this new style”, Cearley said. “While network and bandwidth costs may continue to favor apps that use the intelligence and storage of the client device effectively, coordination and management will be based in the cloud.”

8/ Software-defined applications and infrastructure (second year on list)

Expanding the digital environment to include the entire physical world will require flexibility -something existing hardware-controlled networks don’t have. Software, defined as networks, storage, data centers, and security will be required to make it all work.

9/ Web-scale IT (second year on list)

Gartner believes that organizations will start incorporating global-class computing into the company setting. “The first step should be DevOps — bringing development and operations together in a coordinated way to drive rapid, continuous incremental development of applications and services.”

10/ Risk-based security and self-protection (first year on list)

Gartner and others suggest security positioning through risk assessments is a more realistic goal. Gartner also brought up an interesting concept: “Perimeters and firewalls are no longer enough; every app needs to be self-aware and self-protecting.”

Nick Vivon has written a good summary from a travel tech perspective.  Read his full article here.