Michael Allen, VP Worldwide Partners at Dynatrace, has shared his predictions for the channel landscape in 2024. With the ongoing advancements in AI, Allen posits that significant opportunities will arise for the channel to assist customers in managing the complexity and data that comes along with AI. Key areas of focus for partners will encompass security, sustainability, and ensuring the quality of data.

According to Allen, one major prediction sees customers turning to the channel to prevent digital service outages. The demand for such services is expected to grow, with customers increasingly using generative AI for their software development and innovation processes. However, the risks associated with these activities are equally high, sparking a need for channels to prevent poor-quality code from entering customers' applications. Allen projects a growing need for the channel to prevent these issues, proposing the concept of a "digital immune system" enabled by AI and automation to protect customers' applications from the inside.

Visibility and control over the data customers rely upon to drive automation will also be crucial. The channel is expected to play a significant role in ensuring the quality of the data used in AI-powered analytics and automation. Allen notes that, "as the volume of data continues to grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure its freshness and absence of anomalies or duplicates. In 2024, the channel will see a growing need to tackle this issue by offering solutions with built-in data observability capabilities."

Sustainability, alongside cloud cost-efficiency, is forecasted to be a focal point for the channel in 2024. The increased use of AI solutions equates to a rise in cloud resource consumption and, consequently, a larger carbon footprint. Allen suggests that the channel can offer solutions to lessen this environmental impact by applying observability data to new use cases, thereby aiding customers to stay aligned with their sustainability and cost-efficiency initiatives.

Furthermore, the channel will be expected to play a significant role in optimising the productivity of developers. Allen predicts that organisations will increasingly seek support from their channel partners to construct internal developer platforms (IDPs) that facilitate self-service. These platforms, offering tools and processes, will be instrumental in delivering high-quality software quicker.

Finally, a key shift expected in 2024 is the decline of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions. Allen believes that the channel will see more customers replacing their traditional SIEM systems with next-generation threat intelligence and analytics solutions. The channel could capitalise on this shift by offering diverse AI-based threat analysis solutions that cater to the evolving security needs of customers.