We get asked all the time what “AI for IT” really means. Is it just a fancy way of saying “automation”, or is there more to the equation? Why is it so prevalent now? Well, if we were to put together an “AI for IT” manifesto, it would go something like this: … IT has never been more important, but IT must do more with less Every company is a digital company. Every organization is connected to everything. This makes IT more strategic than ever…
Containers are a hot topic these days, allowing developers to be more agile and less dependent on infrastructure by making their applications portable and enabling them to extract more juice out of their compute. Many application teams are thinking of migrating their existing apps to containers or at least dipping their toes into building new apps. When a team starts looking at containers, the journey generally starts with a developer getting their hands dirty with Docker running on a single VM or a development laptop….
Digital transformation is coming. We hear about how organizations are using it to streamline their processes. We talk to forward-thinking CTOs and CIOs that are leading the charge to change their businesses to be more agile and responsive. But why? There’s a lot of capital tied up in legacy IT. In the US federal government, 75% of the $80 billion IT budget is spent on maintaining legacy equipment. For enterprises, 72% of their budgets is spent on the existing IT infrastructure. The remainder goes to…
You’re about to be disrupted by cloud, whether you adopted it or not. Cloud. It’s been ten years since pundits and press alike declared it the greatest disruption to IT since the turn of the century. And it has been. Cloud has disrupted business models, upset the apple cart of IT, and changed the way we look at everything about applications. We’ve gone from the question of “build or buy” to “build, buy, or subscribe”. Be faster! they said. Be more efficient! they said. Go…
For the past 20 years if not longer, the network has been the lifeblood of enterprises as it is the foundation on which connectivity is built. It is hard to imagine that most any corporate organization can do business without connectivity, so much so that the networks’ power and ubiquity has made it a baseline assumption. Unfortunately, IT spends too much time worrying about the connection and not enough on how we enable the services that use that connection. Therefore, it is the job of…
Data center monitoring and analytics (M&A) requires a comprehensive metadata collection platform that leverages advanced Big Data processing, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) analytics to perform application to network visibility, correlation, and modeling for data center network fabrics. The platform collects network stream metadata (not actual payload data) from across the data center network and devices using telemetry technologies. This data is stored as data lakes and processed using Big Data technology. The structure allows rapid access, searching, and processing of the huge…
As reliance on SaaS applications increases and workloads move to the cloud, Wide Area Network (WAN) requirements increase in scope and are top of mind for many businesses and thought leaders responsible for their digital transformation strategy. Rather than trying to fix each element of their network architecture individually, organizations are beginning to look at their networks more holistically. While there has been a lot of focus on SD-WAN as a primary driver of WAN modernization, at Cisco we believe that it’s just one critical…
Summary Software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) are the technologies driving next generation network transformation; but the factors impacting faster SDN/NFV adoption are the same ones slowing the road to 5G. While there are many technical challenges, it comes down to the fact that this is a paradigm shift. Running a hybrid networking environment can be challenging; communications service providers (CSPs) simply can’t afford to interrupt mission critical services inadvertently while upgrading their networks. Also, investing in network transformation takes buy-in internally and…
Why should we care about monitoring and visibility into Software Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) in the first place? Well, for one thing, analysts’ consensus estimates that the SD-WAN market will grow from roughly $90M in 2017 to over $4B in 2020. Digital economy demands agility in responding to user requirements and delivering superb user experience. The former is achieved via agile development and various software defined technologies. The latter has to be managed. SD-WAN is the software defined networking solution for the edge and…
I remember leaving camp with my parents on visiting day, late 70s, New Hampshire. It was hot and sticky and bright green out as we drove to from Lake Arlington to Hanover, to the Dartmouth campus and the Kiewit Computation Center. Inside was cool and crisp. White and sterile, with the hint of a hum among the rows of machines. On display was connectivity, and it was mesmerizing. A few years later, in 1982, I leveraged this family memory and asked my father for an…
