We’ve watched AI blow through traditional boundaries like a hurricane. We’ve seen data centers face existential pressure, cloud economics get rewritten, infrastructure vendors reinvent themselves, and CIOs become the air-traffic controllers of their organizations’ digital futures. Some days it feels like we’re surfing the crest of the next industrial revolution. Other days, it feels like the wave is about to swallow us whole.

But in the spirit of the season, and true to the Shimmy tradition, let’s talk about what we’re thankful for in IT this year — and yes, the stuff we’re not particularly thankful for either. Because this industry never dishes up one without the other.

Five Things I’m Truly Thankful For in IT This Year

1. The AI-Native Awakening Across the Entire IT Stack

This was the year AI officially stopped being an “application thing” and became an infrastructure thing. Data centers were redesigned around GPUs. Networks were rebuilt for east-west traffic. Observability teams became AI-traffic controllers. Storage vendors relearned physics. Power grids became a limiting factor.

And yet — IT folks didn’t curl up and panic. We adapted. Fast.

What I’m thankful for is the clarity: AI-native is not a feature. It’s the new operating model. And IT pros everywhere stepped up, learned fast, and proved again that this industry survives every paradigm shift not because of the tech — but because of the people.

2. Data Centers Finally Had Their “Come-to-Jesus” Moment

One of my favorite quotes this year:

“All your old data centers are dead.”

Harsh? Maybe. True? Absolutely.

Between power density, cooling demands, sustainability mandates and next-gen workloads, the last five years of DC design may as well be ancient architecture.

I’m thankful that IT leaders finally acknowledged this openly — and started planning future-proofed sites, hybrid extensions, and modernization roadmaps instead of trying to patch up the past. The honesty is refreshing.

3. Cloud Got Smarter, Not Just Bigger

For a decade, cloud was a one-way street: Migrate, spend, repeat. This year? The tide shifted.

CIOs renegotiated contracts. FinOps matured. Workloads came home or moved across providers. Multicloud governance became real. And more enterprises finally realized:

Cloud is a capability, not a destination.

I’m thankful for this newfound pragmatism. Cloud got better because customers got smarter. Markets evolve when buyers evolve—and 2025 proved that in spades.

4. Platform Engineering, Again, but Now for ITOps

If DevOps embraced platform engineering last year, this year IT operations joined the party.

We saw internal platforms for identity, networking, governance, compliance, cost controls, provisioning, AI workload placement — the works.

Long story short:

IT Ops got tired of being the bottleneck, and instead built systems that let the business move faster without sacrificing safety.

That’s something to be thankful for.

5. The Resilience of the Human Side of IT

Through layoffs, restructurings, budget freezes, supply-chain headaches, new compliance mandates, and the nonstop drumbeat of “do more with less”… IT pros kept the lights on. And the networks up. And the systems patched. And the org running.

I’m thankful for the resilience, creativity and sheer grit of this community.

People outside IT think systems run on servers, switches, storage and SaaS.

We know better:

IT runs on human resilience.

Three Things We’re Not Thankful For (Let’s Be Honest)

1. The Return of “Do More With Less” as a Strategy

You knew this was coming.

Budgets tightened. Hiring slowed. Talent walked. Yet expectations skyrocketed — especially with AI projects demanding compute resources mere mortals can’t conjure.

“Do more with less” isn’t a strategy. It’s a cry for help. And IT is feeling it again.

Not thankful for that one, folks.

2. Vendor Pricing Games, Lock-In Agendas and “AI Tax” Economics

Look — vendors need to make money. I get it.

But this year we saw:

• GPU scarcity leading to “market adjustments”
• Cloud providers introducing mysterious surcharges
• Licensing that reads like a trick question
• “AI integrations” that cost more but deliver less
  

I’m not thankful for an industry where predictability is evaporating and enterprise buyers feel like they’re playing three-card monte with their budgets.

3. The Complexity Monster That Just Won’t Die

More dashboards. More consoles. More agents. More APIs. More layers. More tools to manage the tools.

Complexity is becoming the single biggest tax on IT productivity.

And worse, it’s starting to feel like complexity is a business model for some vendors.

Definitely not thankful for that.

Shimmy’s Take: Gratitude is the Fuel That Gets Us Through the Chaos

Looking back at 2025, one thing is clear:

This industry is riding the razor’s edge of the future.

It’s exhausting.

It’s exhilarating.

It’s occasionally ridiculous.

But it’s also deeply inspiring.

AI is redefining everything.

Data centers are reinventing themselves.

Cloud is getting pragmatic.

Platform engineering is reshaping workflows.

And IT professionals are proving yet again that they’re the unsung heroes of modern civilization.

For all the turbulence, we have so much to be thankful for.

And for the stuff we’re not thankful for?

Well… that’s what keeps our jobs interesting.

So from me — Shimmy, your fellow traveler in the trenches — thank you for being part of this wild, wonderful, frustrating, beautiful thing we call the IT industry. Thank you for being part of the Techstrong community.

Here’s to a joyful holiday season, a hopeful new year, and a future where we keep building smarter, safer, faster — and with a little more sanity.

Onward.