EMA Research Blog: Navigating IT and Security Horizons

As I sit here watching the very soggy Rose Parade, my thoughts drift to the cybersecurity topics and trends we will talk about in 2026 (yes, that is how much of a nerd I actually am).

Well, 2025 has been an extremely interesting year with what can only be described as a massive  explosion of agentic AI. And while agentic might hold a large amount of potential to address deficiencies the industry has struggled with for years, with great power comes great responsibility.

IT professionals don’t need to be convinced that silos are a problem. Most of us have lived that reality: the service desk doesn’t have visibility into operations, operations teams aren’t looped in on service priorities, and tickets, alerts, and metrics are disconnected and delayed. Everyone works hard, often heroically, but coordination is reactive, and the gaps show up in ways that users and the business always notice.

A growing number of network engineering teams are adopting network source of truth tools. What are they? And how should you go about setting one up? Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) has published new research on this subject that answers these questions. For this research, EMA analysts conducted long-form interviews with 17 network engineers about their approaches to establishing and maintaining a network source of truth.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Welcome to the recap of the Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) Cybersecurity Awesomeness (CSA) Podcast. Hosted by Chris Steffen, vice president of research, and Ken Buckler, research director at EMA, the CSA Podcast covers a wide range of cybersecurity topics, from cyber workforce talent shortages to cyber threat intelligence, to current events in technology and security. This short, laid-back podcast is for listeners of all skill levels and backgrounds.

If you’ve tried to track the blizzard of OpenAI partnership announcements lately, you might feel like you’re watching the most ambitious infrastructure strategy ever conceived, or a Three Stooges-style routine where everyone keeps paying the same $20 back and forth…except now it’s $20 billion.

The recent news brings to light a topic that is top of mind in my research and studies lately: technology resiliency.

Cybersecurity Awesomeness Podcast – It’s 2025. Do You Know Where Your Data is?

Welcome to the recap of the Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™) Cybersecurity Awesomeness (CSA) Podcast. Hosted by Chris Steffen, vice president of research, and Ken Buckler, research director at EMA, the CSA Podcast covers a wide range of cybersecurity topics, from cyber workforce talent shortages to cyber threat intelligence, to current events in technology and security. This short, laidback podcast is for listeners of all skill levels and backgrounds.

The Nobel Committee has spoken, and for those of us living in the bright lights of the cybersecurity world, it is a day of celebration. The 2025 Physics Prize, awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their work on "macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation," isn't just a headline; it is a validation of the potential of the Quantum Age.