{"id":43212,"date":"2019-11-11T10:55:36","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T10:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/?p=43212"},"modified":"2019-11-15T14:28:57","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T14:28:57","slug":"how-cios-and-it-teams-can-prepare-for-life-on-the-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2019\/11\/11\/how-cios-and-it-teams-can-prepare-for-life-on-the-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"How CIOs and IT teams can properly prepare for life on the Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With the earning potential of Edge computing making itself clear, Jacob Chacko, Regional Business Head – Middle East at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise, explains why delivering on it will inevitably mean the C-suite spending progressively greater amounts of time truly understanding the IT capabilities being delivered.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT teams have\nbeen under pressure to introduce a range of new technologies into businesses,\nacross multiple departments and functions. These range from IoT, to AI and Machine\nLearning, data processing alongside traditional functional technologies like\nCRM systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The network Edge\nrepresents the culmination of these technologies coming together. According to\nGartner, Edge computing will be a necessary requirement for all digital\nbusinesses by 2022. With potentially trillions of dollars being invested in the\nhope of generating huge economic returns, the argument for paying attention to the\nEdge opportunity is clear and the window for learning and action is narrowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challenge\nfor IT teams is to lead the pursuit of these Edge-based strategies across the\nbusiness and manage the Edge environments, from user devices to operational technology\nall with data security as a priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the findings of the\ne-book commissioned by Aruba entitled Opportunity at the Edge: Change, Challenge, and Transformation on the\nPath to 2025<\/em>, many interviewees and survey respondents highlight the\nsheer scale of the technology ecosystem that IT must manage in an Edge\nenvironment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in a\nuniversity environment, IT now must accommodate and support the range of\nstudent devices being used across campus \u2013 from laptops to smart speakers \u2013\nplus IoT-enabled environments such as temperature sensors and security cameras.\nAt the same time, all the university functions from catering to the athletics\ndepartment are deploying an ever-wider array of technologies at the Edge that\nneed to be bound into the network and supported in a secure manner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innovation, Change and\nTransformation Advisor Philippe Chon\u00e9 reinforces this point: \u201cProducts used to\nbe physical things. Now products come with a layer of software and data and\nthat points to an ecosystem. Product management and strategy, then, needs to\ninvolve not only IT partners but also legal compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the challenge for\nthe C-suite is ensuring leaders have enough understanding and digital literacy\nto drive and support the IT function to fulfil its crucial emerging role in a\nbusiness pursuing Edge strategy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building\nan Edge-capable IT function<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the expert\ninterviews, survey and secondary research, the issue of upgrading IT\ncapabilities was raised consistently. Emphasis was placed on the need for the\nC-suite to reassure itself that the IT function fully understands the\nrequirements and challenges of delivering seamless and secure service across\ntens of thousands of digital touchpoints, with focus on four key issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the management,\nintegration and security of a highly distributed IT infrastructure spanning\nfrom the core of the business via the cloud to the new network Edge. Typically,\nthis ecosystem includes users, fixed and mobile Edge devices, applications,\ndata, distributed data centres, networks, gateways, on-premises infrastructure,\ncloud services, infrastructure management processes, security management and\nreporting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key here is flexibility as\nmost organisations cannot say with certainty just how many digital touch-points\nthey might create over the next three to five years in an Edge environment.\nHence the infrastructure strategy needs to allow for the potential for the\nnumber of Edge-connected devices to increase by 10X, 100X or 1000X \u2013 placing\nthe spotlight on the scalability and interoperability of the technology choices\nbeing made.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the collection,\nstorage, management, security, privacy protection and governance of data\nbecomes a heightened priority as the organisation increasingly reinvents itself\naround this core asset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, the sheer\ncomplexity of such environments will drive organisations to make far greater\nuse of smart software applications operating at every level from device monitoring\nto management of the entire ecosystem. While AI will have a clear role to play,\nit is critical that every component in the software architecture can be\nmonitored with full traceability of how it made its decisions. This may be a\nmajor challenge with many of the current AI applications that cannot explain\ntheir reasoning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth, as highlighted\nearlier, the Edge represents a massive increase in potential security risks as\nevery device and network touchpoint becomes a potential point of vulnerability\nand source of threat. The InfoSec Institute highlights a number of critical\nrisks that need to be managed, including weak device access passwords; insecure\ncommunications; data collected and transmitted by devices being largely\nunencrypted and unauthenticated; physical security risks for individual\ndevices; and poor service visibility, with security teams unaware of the\nservices running on certain devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Edge clearly\nrepresents a massive business opportunity and delivering on it will inevitably\nmean the C-suite spending progressively greater amounts of time truly\nunderstanding the IT capabilities being delivered. Leaders will need to be\nimmersed enough to know if their IT function, its infrastructure and its key\npartners are fit for purpose and can provide a robust platform to enable a\nrange of future options. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the earning potential of Edge computing making itself clear, Jacob Chacko, Regional Business Head – Middle East at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise, explains why delivering on it will inevitably mean the C-suite spending progressively greater amounts of time truly understanding the IT capabilities being delivered. IT teams have been under pressure to introduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":43213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5307,139,4115,809,38,3629,9961,79],"tags":[3211,155,4775,1439,209,10048,3430,562],"class_list":["post-43212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-industry-expert","category-intelligent-technology-newsletter","category-more-news","category-networking","category-newsletter","category-thought-leadership","category-used","tag-ai","tag-cio","tag-edge","tag-hewlett-packard","tag-it","tag-jacob-chacko","tag-machine-learning","tag-middle-east"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43212"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43301,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212\/revisions\/43301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}