Shifting Gears
How enterprises can face a fast-evolving data landscape with confidence
Known as Moore’s Law, this trend is consistent with an observation originally made by Gordon Moore in 1965 regarding transistor density. Today, it is regularly discussed in technology circles and has been observed in other forms, like with data volume, which roughly doubles every two years.
The need to anticipate, respond and deliver, while still innovating for long-term survival, has always been essential for organizations. Yet many IT infrastructures, still relying on decades-old applications and legacy mainframe systems, are straining to meet customer expectations for rapid-speed service—whether to buy a product, make a trade or simply catch a flight home.
“All these industries have very high transactional demands placed on their data centers, which means ‘availability’ is one of the most important factors,” said Paul Bobak, vice president of technical field services at TmaxSoft, a Chicago-based infrastructure software company.
Known as Moore’s Law, this trend is consistent with an observation originally made by Gordon Moore in 1965 regarding transistor density. Today, it is regularly discussed in technology circles and has been observed in other forms, like with data volume, which roughly doubles every two years.
The importance of data
Data gatekeepers
Time is money
“Having the most reliable IT backbone is a strategic imperative; that leaves little appetite for risk-taking among chief information officers—at the same time, disruption is the norm in technology if you want to stay ahead,” Bobak said.
The consequence of downtime for enterprises can be devastating: The global advisory firm Gartner has put the cost, across all industries, at nearly $6,000 per minute. The impact on consumer confidence is incalculable.
Outcomes increasingly hinge on a fraction of a second. High-frequency trading depends as much on algorithms as on operational speed, especially for international trades. Retailers must now update online inventory at a rapid clip, with real-time, big-data analytics fed into buyer preferences to keep up.
With regular updates to inventory, companies need to regularly update security measures as well. The burdens placed on legacy point-of-sale systems to accommodate such data, as well as any number of mobile and IoT-driven transactions don’t just portend a potential outage; hefty fines can result from an inability to process cardholder data at newly required levels of security.
“Having the most reliable IT backbone is a strategic imperative; that leaves little appetite for risk-taking among chief information officers—at the same time, disruption is the norm in technology if you want to stay ahead,” Bobak said.
The consequence of downtime for enterprises can be devastating: The global advisory firm Gartner has put the cost, across all industries, at nearly $6,000 per minute. The impact on consumer confidence is incalculable.
Outcomes increasingly hinge on a fraction of a second. High-frequency trading depends as much on algorithms as on operational speed, especially for international trades. Retailers must now update online inventory at a rapid clip, with real-time, big-data analytics fed into buyer preferences to keep up.
With regular updates to inventory, companies need to regularly update security measures as well. The burdens placed on legacy point-of-sale systems to accommodate such data, as well as any number of mobile and IoT-driven transactions don’t just portend a potential outage; hefty fines can result from an inability to process cardholder data at newly required levels of security.
Yet as enterprises reel from the consequences of legacy systems and the ensuing gridlock, new approaches are emerging for efficient, scalable and secure networks that can accommodate innovation’s next leap.
“Worldwide we are seeing enterprises embrace software-defined, on-demand networking solutions to deliver the applications and services their employees, customers and business partners need, when they need them,” said Jim Melvin, chief marketing officer at SevOne, an infrastructure performance monitoring company.
The benefits of a software-defined wide area network span speed, agility and visibility. The inherent flexibility also helps with cost: Nimble pricing structures are based on actual operational use versus rigid long-term budget forecasts that may not adequately provision for traffic bursts in peak times or conversely, periods when demand is low. For many enterprises, that flexibility is crucial. And virtualizing network functions, instead of being locked into proprietary hardware, increases agility for businesses.
big data surge, driven by mobile and video
137 petabytes
AT&T's total data traffic on an
average business day
"downtime is something that
in today’s world can be avoided
if a company is using the right
solutions.”"downtime is something
that in today’s world
can be avoided if a
company is using the
right solutions.”
“Businesses spend billions annually on hardware worldwide. The potential savings, options and flexibility associated with moving to a virtualized edge platform are significant,” says Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president, Offer Management and Service Integration, AT&T Business. “It’s game changing when network functions like routers or firewalls are moved to a virtual model. Businesses can be more agile while driving down costs.”
Still, even as enterprises find new offerings and innovation possibilities, industry experts warn against complacency as a critical factor in enabling ransomware attacks. A volume-based business, ransomware locks out individual users and organizations from their systems and demands relatively small payments in order to regain access.
“As enterprise businesses offer more flexible software-based services, they must also see to it that security protocols are consistently updated,” notes Bill O’Hern, Chief Security Officer at AT&T. “For instance, a lack of timely security patches and reliance on outdated operating systems led to the May WannaCry ‘mass destruction malware’ attack. Preventing attacks of any caliber requires timely and consistent updates across systems and applications.”
“IT pros need solutions that eliminate single points of failure and ensure that when they move to the cloud, they don’t give up any of the enterprise-grade data protection, disaster recovery and data security features they had built into their prior architecture,” said Kevin Liebl, vice president of marketing at Zadara Storage, a data storage company.
Experts also stress thorough review of service level agreements, mean time between failure (and recovery), as well as adherence to international privacy laws—a constantly shifting landscape, as suggested by the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation within the European Union.
“Look for established players who are financially strong and regularly invest in new technology and research,” said Michael Paulin, chief information officer with the Detroit-based Kaufman Financial Group. “On the technical side, seek out a strong, enforceable service level agreement that guarantees high redundancy; downtime is something that in today’s world can be avoided if a company is using the right solutions.”
In the crosshair
Number of cyberattacks targeting at&t daily
successful it solutions have:
Experts also stress thorough review of service level agreements, mean time between failure (and recovery), as well as adherence to international privacy laws—a constantly shifting landscape, as suggested by the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation within the European Union.
“Look for established players who are financially strong and regularly invest in new technology and research,” said Michael Paulin, chief information officer with the Detroit-based Kaufman Financial Group. “On the technical side, seek out a strong, enforceable service level agreement that guarantees high redundancy; downtime is something that in today’s world can be avoided if a company is using the right solutions.”