Author: James Efron

  • AIOps Greasing the Wheel of Digital Security amid COVID-19

    AIOps Greasing the Wheel of Digital Security amid COVID-19

    Amid the most challenging era for business infrastructures and transformations, AIOps (AI for IT Operations) can help industries operating in the digital environment to be vigilant when it comes to network operations or the digital security measures.

    AIOps has the potential to significantly align well with the cybersecurity needs of a company. A cybersecurity department in every organization needs to be active with respect to the latest and innovative security-related solutions. Threat detection and data security are crucial for every business entity.

    The corporate networking infrastructure for communication purposes is always under the threat of unauthorized third-parties that try to access confidential communications. Whether they are wireless, wired or connected to internet of things (IoT) devices. AIOps, through its intelligent algorithms, detects the communication requests and their source to accept them and restrict the fraudulent entities from becoming part of the legitimate network. Visibility and speed are two important aspects of platform security. If the source of the incoming request is known, it would be easy to verify it.

    The following are some of AIOps applications:

    Regulatory Framework

    General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) corresponds to the protection of online customer data online. Businesses are required to ensure enough security measures to protect the personal and financial information of customers stored in an online account from identity theft and data breaches. AIOps can be used to secure the data from unauthorized third-party access in order to comply with the regulatory requirements.

    Real-time Data Processing

    In this era, communications, connection, data transmission and storage activities are performed online. Real-time data collection and processing in AIOps help streamline the operations and ensure the security of platforms in a centralized database. Technologies are shaping future investments. Enterprise management with respect to the performance attributes such as data analysis and monitoring for controlled access are in high demand. Advanced automation techniques have become possible with the innovative AIOps that help undergo operations in efficiently, eliminating the time-consuming and frustrating manual tasks. Machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms collectively help reduce the overall response time, provide optimal user experience and protect network systems.

    Applications of AIOps amid the COVID-19 outbreak pave the roads for leading challenges. The rapid digital transformations during the pandemic are giving birth to various challenges with respect to security, user experience and the downfall of industries. Businesses are revamping operational infrastructure and fraudsters are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in the digital environment. The density with which the fraud is increasing each passing day is high. AIOps, under these circumstances, help businesses take into consideration vigilant security measures. The innovative solutions employ AI algorithms for the security of online platforms.

    Information Security and AIOps

    Information security highlights three major factors: confidentiality, integrity and availability. Confidentiality takes into account the need for protecting confidential customer information. Integrity keeps the form of data intact and availability ensures that the data is present at the moment when it is required. AIOps help ensure this CIA triad of information security through its high potential applications online security.

    High-scale data breaches, identity theft, account takeover frauds, malicious executables injection and similar cyberattacks are due to the uncontrolled access over user accounts and data. The list of fraud calls for stringent actions that AIOps provides in the form of digital security. The AI-powered identity verification systems help verifies the identity of customers online before onboarding them. Biometric sign-in every time while accessing the accounts help mitigate the risk fo fraud and bad actors that become the reason for malevolent activities. The spoofing detection and prevention techniques use AIOps that identify the spoofing elements in user-uploaded identity proofs and discard their communication request, which in return curb the likelihood of cyberattacks.

  • A Deep Dive Into AI for IT Operations

    A Deep Dive Into AI for IT Operations

    Traditional IT administration and management techniques are reforming. By employing artificial intelligence (AI), IT operations are taking an interesting turn in the field of advancements. The term “AIOps” stands for Artificial Intelligence for the IT Operations. AIOps uses AI techniques and algorithms to monitor the data as well as reduce the blackout times. The dominance of digital businesses is introducing technological changes in their operations to streamline them and eliminate the overhead of traditional operational management. 

    Digital companies are generating abundant and information-rich data whose analysis and monitoring do not demand delays. From data collection to storage and data processing to analysis, all operations need to be frictionless to deal with them in an efficient manner. In the last couple of years, the AIOps market has exploded which is ultimately achieving the goal of reducing delays in problem-solving and identification.

    Paving the Road to AIOps

    The story starts with the need of AIOps and digital transformations. Cloud adoption and the shift toward other digital technologies are revamping the IT industry. It also includes the adoption of innovative solutions in the IT operations to make them frictionless. The technologies that are widely used in IT operations vary from AI to machine learning, big data to Internet of Things (IoT) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for various use-cases to edge computing. All these innovations are penetrating into IT operations making them more smooth and sleek.

     AIOps platforms enhance and automate IT operations, using the following different approaches:

    • Using machine learning algorithms and neural networks for better analysis of gathered data. The data is gathered using IoT devices and tools connected with the source and sending data to the cloud for storage. 
    • The system automatically interprets if something is wrong in the operations. The errors are detected and solved immediately without introducing delays in the operations that are dependent on each other to complete.
    • Reducing human power by automating the processes that include the effort of individuals. 

    Components of AIOps

    The two basic components of AIOps that accelerate innovation in IT operations are machine learning and big data. Instead of spending human effort and time into cleaning, processing and analysis of the raw data collected from different platforms, IT operations are able to do all the tasks by employing machine learning algorithms and techniques to judge the nature of data and deduce necessary information from it.

    Factors Boosting the Emergence of AIOps

    AI is a promising technology that holds the confidence of building applications that can help the IT community. AI provides options for reliability, scalability and generic tools that can be deployed to promote the IT operations and boost them without utilizing human power.

    Factors boosting digital transformation in the IT industry:

    • Complex IT Infrastructure: Its operations face many challenges regarding data management and infrastructure. Manual IT operations are becoming harder to handle such as data collection, processing, cloud management, database efficiency, third-party management tools and SaaS integrations. Complexity management is a task that needs proper attention and the environment to deal in a better way. 
    • Handling Abundant Data: IoT technology is penetrating rapidly at an industrial level. IoT devices produce an abundant amount of data. Handling this much data is not the job of individuals. Therefore, by using AI-based algorithms the data is interpreted and analyzed. The performance is monitored using efficient algorithms. 
    • Increased Computing Power: The networking infrastructure has become robust. Therefore the IT industry is in dire need to enhance the processing speed also. By deploying IT solutions that harness AI and machine learning technologies, the computational power of the system can be increased. 

    Enterprises Using AIOps

    The IT companies that are complex and large to which human power is not enough for overall operations are using AIOps to automate the tasks.

    The adoption of technology has a huge impact on the success of IT companies:

    • Development Teams: Companies that have a DevOps model and struggle to manage the roles between the organization are using AI and other innovative technologies to smoothen their processes. With this, developers increase the responsiveness, agility and clarity in the IT operations.
    • Cloud Computing: Cloud computing has a big future. The companies store their huge data in the cloud and all the operations related to cloud data management need to streamline, as it has its own challenges. Therefore, to make the processes flow without errors and monitor the access, there needs to be automation.
    • Digital Transformation: Companies around the world are all active in adopting technology solutions. Whether it is a fintech, travel, healthcare or e-commerce company, all businesses are automating their processing by first digitizing them and providing the user’s facility of utilizing applications based on newly emerged technologies. Information handling can be done by making operations handled by robotics and blockchain technology. AIOps removes friction from the IT operations.

    — James Efron

  • Five Technology Trends to Shape Future Investments

    Five Technology Trends to Shape Future Investments

    Humans invented technology to introduce innovative products in the market. Technology’s relentless cycle of innovation has now touched humanity, redefining what it means to be a human, a meaningful change that is impacting business priorities and is expected to do so in the future.    

    The most important tech investment for C-level executives relates to digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and cybersecurity. With 71% of the world expected to use mobile phones by 2024 and the successes of mobile banking in developing countries, experts predict that mobile and blockchain technologies will also join to bring about more financial inclusions.

    Here are five things that C-suite business people should invest in.

    Digital Transformation: Everything Online

    As one of the weapons in the arsenal of business innovation, digital transformation has become such a buzz word that it turns people on. According to a report by Forrester, 90% of the executives believe digital transformation is a necessity for their business, and around 60% believe they lag behind in digital transformation. By the end of 2020, a company would either have transformed or will be on its way to adapt to digital transformation.

    IoT: A Thousand Points of Entry?

    Business implementation of IoT and blockchain are very popular these days. However, if we look to enterprises it’s a different story. Costs, security and current political climate are the major hurdles for the enterprise-level implementation of IoT. To get the most out of this innovative technology, businesses need to determine what stands in their way and then work on strategies to sort things out. So until the issues are dealt with, IoT will be seen as a promising technology that’s not ready for prime time.

    AI: A Real Game-Changer

    Every so often a technology comes along that has the potential to completely change everything around it. The last such thing was cloud computing. Like cloud computing, AI has been around for a long time. AI, machine learning and deep learning are catching up with the initial promises and it will become more evident in the coming years.

    Most common usage of AI and machine learning will be seen in business intelligence, automating the repeated tasks, and making future prediction using the previous data. Previously, AI has been used for decision making using data analytics and this is expected to increase in the coming years with more businesses investing in the AI-driven decision-making system. Another use of AI that will be more common is digital identity verification for online businesses.

    Ultimately, AI/machine learning and deep learning will be seen more frequently in the years ahead. However, the promises it brings are far fetched and it’s worth waiting to see the true potential of AI.

    Quantum Computing: The Next Big Thing

    Currently, in R&D, quantum computing will open new ways by solving problems that require a lot of computation. Google’s investment in quantum R&D is expected to grow and more researchers will shift their focus from AI to quantum. With the emergence of 5G, the quantum research industry will see a boom.

    DevOps: For a Customer-Centric Approach

    According to the Forrester report, firms will embrace a customer-centric approach as the DevOps speeds flatter. DevOps continues to impress the heart and minds. However, with a slow-release speed, engineers are experiencing a stress point. DevOps teams must see this as an opportunity to approach DevOps differently. Within the next six to 12 months, DevOps adoption will change and the team will implement new strategies. Testing will revolve around previous radical methods and new technology will help developers to learn new skills.

    — James Efron