It is the time of year for reflection and thanks. This article on CTOEdge kicked off the period of reflection for us. We agree with a number of the author’s technologies to be thankful for in 2009, including:

• Server Virtualization – With a nod towards savings including OPEX and CAPEX costs, organizations of all sizes will continue to look to server virtualization to reduce the physical number of servers but increase the amount of applications running on the physical servers through virtualization. This trend easily continues into 2010.
• Cloud Computing – Still the hot category into 2010. Cloud computing and server/application virtualization is the basis for organizational IT planning in 2009/2010.
• Application Acceleration (Appliances) – We will disagree on this one a bit with the author. The author talks to application acceleration appliances in the hardware form factor and we believe the real technology to be thankful for in this category is application acceleration through virtual software appliances. Think about it, if we agree that server virtualization is a continuing trend, why would IT be adding more hardware to accelerate applications? Wouldn’t the logical step be to virtualize WAN optimization and application acceleration via software as well?
• Virtual Switches – A really interesting technology to be thankful for and a focus for 2010. Further to the point above for application acceleration via virtual software appliances, why not move switching and routing functions to a virtual appliance model as well? Another direct hardware cost savings opportunity and the software exists today.
• Desktop Virtualization – The great equalizer? According to Gartner, virtualized desktops will grow to 49 million units by 2013.

 What technologies are you thankful for? Which from the list can you not live without? Are there any that you think were missed and should be there?