Technologies
Services
Business
Devices
Before 2020, the world was steadily heading towards digital innovation to improve business operations and daily life. But post-2020 saw an explosion of companies wanting to tap into the endless possibilities of digital transformation with a focus on end user digital experience. In fact, businesses in the United States and other global regions are set to spend an estimated $4.4 trillion on digital transformation.
More companies across sectors recognize the value in digital transformation to gain market share, increase revenue, boost profitability, and ensure secure operations. But this shift requires a complete rethinking of an organization’s IT infrastructure, technologies, and processes. And while this rethinking can open up a goldmine of data for organizations to monitor and optimize their digital experiences, it also comes with a cost of increased complexities and strain on networks to process and manage that influx of data.
The data problem stifling networks
From internet-of-things (IoT) sensors to servers, thousands of devices within a company’s IT infrastructure generate data about their operations, performance, and security. These devices rely on a network to transfer this data from edge to edge, edge to cloud, or cloud to edge so their applications can run smoothly. Making sense of the volume of data that travels within the network is the cornerstone of effective digital transformation, but two problems have persisted when trying to do so.
The first problem involves contextualizing the data. Giving context to the generated data becomes more complicated when multiple data sets exist, such as each device’s network performance, server responsiveness, or fiber throughput. Mitigating the issues that emerge from a network, which could hinder its reliability, requires a contextual analysis. But with multiple data sets to account for, this becomes more difficult.
Another issue is the sheer amount of data that each device produces. With a vast number of data from thousands of devices scattered across a network, it’s challenging to monitor – most often manually – the problems that may arise, such as network degradation or failure, and which ones need to be reviewed and evaluated first.
Network intelligence is how companies can gather and analyze data insights and improve a network’s operational ability.
The way forward with network intelligence
Network intelligence, an enabling technology that allows communications service providers (CSPs) to capture subscriber-, service-, and application-level awareness contained in network traffic, is crucial for analyzing data that travels in a network. With network intelligence,
companies can identify performance challenges that exist and determine what’s causing them.
The capabilities of network intelligence power next-generation technologies that are at the forefront of digital transformation, including AI, machine learning, and 5G. These capabilities – which include multi-source, multi-domain data capture across disparate network devices; contextualization and correlation across all network events; problem discovery, alerting and resolution recommendation; and root cause analysis for future improvements — are instrumental in enabling a true end-to-end network solution that’s essential for digital transformation.
Network intelligence that hits the mark should work through a five-step process:
As more companies adopt digital transformation, they’ll require network infrastructure that can support their data demands. The produced data needs to be analyzed and monitored to identify any underlying problems within a network. With network intelligence, companies can understand the value of the data their devices produce and fully embrace digital transformation.
Frank Cittadino is Senior Vice President of Edge Services at Zayo, where he oversees the company’s edge strategy. He previously served as CEO of QOS Networks, a leading provider of SD-WAN and edge managed services, which was acquired by Zayo in January 2022.
PREVIOUS POST
NEWSLETTER
Get updates and alerts
delivered to your inbox
NEWSLETTER
Get updates and alerts
delivered to your inbox
COPYRIGHT © 2022 THE FAST MODE