What analytics can do in the IoE era?

In an era of multiple connections and an explosion of data, the use of analytics provides organizations with greater visibility and actionable knowledge about the IT environmentby proactively identifying potential problems. Analytics in the context of IoE  gives organizations the tools to tackle the data deluge challenge directly while also helping to derive valuable business insights in real-time.

By E R Ashok Kumar, Lead, Services Sales, Cisco India & SAARC

Consider cloud computing as an example. Cloud computing provides businesses with the agility of a fast, flexible way to use the most advanced technology possible, when and where needed. Public cloud computing for example removes the need for organizations to make large capital investments for hardware and facilities; it is cost effective and adaptable and frees valuable IT staff from routine IT operations and maintenance so they can create new services and revenue streams. This speed, effectiveness, flexibility, and innovation are critical for success in the Internet of Everything (IoE) economy.

In an IoE economy when people, processes, data, and things are connected, the right hardware, software, consulting, and services, become critical for success. Transforming business with cloud computing platforms therefore needs careful planning and precise implementation.

Analytics for efficiency

Cloud computing shifts the business function of IT towards service; managing such a change can be quite daunting for organizations. In order to ensure that the transition is smooth and successful, businesses will need consultants who can help create the much needed partnerships between the business and technical functions within the organization to scale, meet these challenges, design good business practices and increase customer relevance. In order for businesses to create and deliver an efficient and agile cloud platform for an IoE economy, it is important to apply IT analytics to address business challenges and build an infrastructure that improves an organization’s profitability and effectiveness.

Typically organizations need intelligence in order to make decisions about their business. Analytics are required to gather this intelligence. In an IoE world however, data will be widely distributed, will have a short shelf life, and too much data would be moving fast enough. Therefore organizations need a new strategy that can turn data into valuable business insights in real time. With the explosion of streaming data happening at the network edge, combining streaming data with historic data can empower organizations to make business decisions like never before.

Analytics for the IoE era which include things like pre-packaged analytics software, can give organizations the tools to take on this data deluge challenge directly. It can give organizations access to real-time information, predictions, and trends that can have an immediate impact on business. Data virtualization, data analytics consulting, and services that integrate seamlessly across business infrastructure can help to instantly capture, analyze, and interpret critical data at the network edge.

Services opportunity

Typically organizations will seek both consulting and support services so that they can make the most of the information that is available to them and hence increase business agility and profitability. The opportunity for services will be as under:

• Consulting

Consulting Services can help extract value from business faster to provide critical information and insight across a distributed data environment. This will help organizations develop a complete data strategy be it expanding capabilities or creating implementation and deployment plans, to delivering analytics-based recommendations. Additionally it is possible to gain the full value of a trusted advisor that can help change business behavior, capture opportunities, respond to threats, and improve business efficiency.

• Support Services

Providing support services can help businesses in their data and analytics strategy right from project management, analysis, implementation, to training so that they can make the most of their IT investments. Strategic services like analytics; portfolio prioritization and roadmaps; solution design, implementation, and management services help to unlock new business insights “hidden” within big data.

Typically network-based data analytics combined with real-time streaming analytics and other data sources, both at the core and at the edge of the network help organizations identify, design, prototype, and implement big data analytics solutions quickly and cost effectively.

Way ahead

Software-enabled services and analytics provide greater visibility and intelligence, improve operational efficiency of business, and enhance the overall performance of the infrastructure. Simplifying and streamlining IT infrastructure management and incorporating software automation helps to solve different network management and support issues enabling organizations to optimize the network and IT infrastructure.

Improving overall IT efficiencies and reducing operation costs can translate to significant cost savings for a typical organization. Analytics that provide greater visibility and actionable knowledge about the IT environment by proactively identifying potential problems can help increase infrastructure availability and reliability.

Organizations that adopt a proactive rather than reactive strategy will clearly turn out to be the winners as we move into an even more connected era. For service providers the opportunity in business consulting and support means they will play a crucial role in IT transformation.  Adopting a change management strategy will therefore be the key to success.