The biggest risk of the IT modernization process isn’t choosing the wrong technology, it’s doing nothing at all. Factors like rising costs, vendor lock-in, changing industry landscapes create complexity that compounds with every new remote site.
If you’re managing edge infrastructure across distributed locations, you’re dealing with more than just the day-to-day of keeping the lights on. You’re likely experiencing a push to continue innovating, adopting latest technology like AI, while keeping infrastructure complexity and costs down. The pressure to “modernize” keeps building without a clear roadmap.
What’s more, industry shifts like Broadcom’s VMware licensing changes in late 2023 mean 98% of existing VMware customers have now been on a 2-year long journey to finding alternatives. And while a wide range of alternatives now exist, understanding what’s right for you and how it will actually impact and improve your infrastructure is difficult.
But here’s the thing. IT modernization doesn’t have to mean ripping everything out and starting over. You just need to start moving in the right direction. Let’s take a look at the latest trends.
Trend 1: The Legacy Infrastructure Crisis
You can’t modernize IT infrastructure that you don’t understand. But you most certainly can continue paying for it.
Over half of UK banking firms now describe their legacy technology as “bottomless pits” draining both time and money. Organizations stuck with outdated IT systems are already seeing a 25% drop in efficiency compared to those leveraging modern or AI-driven solutions. Yet despite these clear drawbacks, the cost of change remains a major barrier. Even by the end of 2023, the average legacy tech upgrade was already hitting $2.9 million, before the added pressure and complexity introduced by the rapid rise of AI.
What This Means for Your Infrastructure
The market is splitting into two groups: organizations that assess and modernize deliberately, and organizations that wait until systems fail. The first group controls costs and timing, while the second group faces emergency replacements at premium prices.
Start by documenting what you have. How many edge sites are you managing? What’s running at each location? Which applications are critical to business operations? You need to know your server specifications and age, storage systems and capacity, which hypervisor platforms you’re using, and your networking equipment.
Trend 2: Hardware Refreshes and Reusing What You Have
A hardware refresh is the process of replacing outdated or underperforming IT equipment with new solutions to keep IT infrastructure and systems secure, efficient, and optimized. And it’s an essential, often inevitable, part of the IT management lifecycle.
But recent shifts in the market have made the process entirely more expensive. From late 2025, memory (RAM) prices have seen significant increases. Memory prices rose by 80%-90% quarter on quarter (QoQ) in Q1 2026, marking record highs. This is due to market changes, like increased demand for artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and applications. Manufacturers are actively shifting capacity away from consumer electronics and toward higher-margin memory solutions that support AI. This shift is also affecting other components like storage and GPUs, as it constrains the supply of general-purpose memory modules.
What This Means for Your Infrastructure
Finding new ways to extend your hardware lifecycle is the most cost-effective, optimal route to modernize in this current market. For example, when costs for hardware change seemingly in front of your eyes, it’s difficult to justify committing to IT budget increases. And even costs are looking good, the hardware availability probably isn’t. Six-month wait times for your hardware delivery take away any possibility of rapid deployment. Slow wait times delay innovation and modernization across your business.
Smart solutions like virtualization software abstracts applications and workloads from the underlying hardware, which reduces direct dependence on specific physical devices. This creates more flexibility, letting you reuse hardware that once seemed obsolete by relying on newer software solutions. As a result, you can extend hardware lifespans, consolidate workloads, and reduce the need for frequent large-scale replacements. Instead of retiring older systems, repurpose them with software that runs efficiently on lower specifications.
Focus on lightweight software that avoids heavy RAM usage and frequent, expanding updates. Choose options with low system requirements and platform flexibility so you can plan ahead, scale, and adapt your infrastructure more effectively.
Trend 3: Focus on AI Infrastructure Requirements
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how organizations manage infrastructure, but it’s also creating new infrastructure requirements that many legacy systems can’t support.
Organizations, across all industries, aren’t just expected to increase their spending, they’re sprinting towards the goalpost – one that’s constantly moving, too! The aggregate annual AI infrastructure commitment from the five largest US cloud and technology companies has increased from approximately $380 billion in 2025 to a projected $660-690 billion in 2026. This isn’t just about adding GPUs, it’s about building infrastructure that can adapt to AI workloads alongside traditional applications.
What This Means for Your Infrastructure
The organizations positioning themselves for AI success aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones deploying flexible, software-defined foundations that adapt to new workload types without requiring complete overturns or infrastructure replacement.
Modern infrastructure needs to handle these variable workloads without requiring manual intervention. Software-defined solutions can dynamically allocate resources based on demand. Hyperconverged platforms can scale compute and storage independently, and in the future, match these requirements of AI deployments.
Trend 4: Vendor Diversification To Support Modernization
In the edge IT landscape, the 2023 Broadcom VMware licensing changes exposed a critical vulnerability. That vendor lock-in eliminates negotiating power and flexibility.
45% of businesses recognize budget constraints as a major reason why they want to move away from VMware. And multi-vendor strategies that avoid single-vendor dependence might be a solution. In turn, the market is responding with software and application built on open standards that work across multiple hypervisors and platforms.
What This Means for Your Infrastructure
Businesses with IT modernization goals that operate across edge environments should utilize solutions that can use industry-standard x86 hardware from multiple manufacturers instead of proprietary appliances.
This isn’t just about avoiding vendor lock-in, it’s about maintaining options as requirements evolve. When new hypervisors emerge or existing vendors change pricing models, organizations with flexible infrastructure can adapt. While those locked into proprietary platforms might face painful migrations or escalating costs.
What This Means for Your IT Modernization Strategy
These market trends aren’t abstract, they’re reshaping what’s possible and what’s economically viable. Legacy infrastructure that seemed acceptable two years ago is now a competitive liability. Yes, change has happened incredibly fast, but there’s no need to panic, only adapt.
In fact, we’ve found that the organizations thriving aren’t the ones with unlimited budgets. They’re the ones modernizing deliberately with easy to deploy software that eliminate complexity, scale efficiently, and adapt to emerging requirements. The market is moving toward hyperconverged infrastructure, edge computing, AI-ready platforms, and vendor diversification. Your infrastructure choices today determine whether you’re positioned to capitalize on these trends or left scrambling to catch up. Read our IT Infrastructure Modernization Roadmap to find out more.
