With so much attention being given to artificial intelligence (AI) today, you’ve probably heard how artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) will revolutionize just about everything. And now we have to contend with something called AI networking.
If you’re responsible for wireless, wireline, and wide area networks, you’re probably looking for answers about how AI, machine learning, and automation can help your retail organization, given all the noise. So let’s consider this topic for clarity of understanding.
To best understand the topic and key characteristics of an effective AI solution, a review of some definitions is a good place to start.
What AIOps is and what AIOps can do: Originally created by Gartner, AIOps combines big data and machine learning to automate IT operations processes such as event correlation, anomaly detection, and causal determination. In short, AIOps is similar to DevOps in that it integrates service and performance management with automation to provide continuous insight and enable improvement.
However, confusion started to arise due to Google’s different interpretation of terms such as networking, storage and support services. For this reason, Gartner recently introduced AI networking, a subset of AIOps defined as a more efficient way to manage Day 2 network operations. In other words, AIOps refers to the broader infrastructure managed by information and operations (I&O) teams, while AI networking focuses on wired, wireless, and WAN networking.
Fundamentally, AIOps, and more specifically AI networking, will be able to find and respond to problems faster and prevent network outages faster than humans can, given the proliferation of cloud and private services, users, and users. It provides intelligence and automation that can IoT devices in various locations supported by the retail network.
In fact, AI-powered solutions are already helping IT professionals like you solve some of today’s biggest retail networking challenges.
- Manage multiple stores remotely. For retailers with centralized IT teams and distributed locations, AI networking capabilities provide near real-time visibility into network activity. This includes determining the types of devices connected to the network, identifying sites with LAN or WAN problems, and automatically collecting the necessary data logs. Plus, get AI-powered alerts to focus and troubleshoot your most pressing issues.
- pinpoint the problem. Machine learning models are designed to point out behavioral patterns and deviations from those patterns, so AI networking insights and alerts can also uncover problems in wireless, wired and WAN gateways that traditional tools miss. Helpful. For example, AI networking capabilities can help determine the difference between a malfunctioning device due to a hardware failure and an intermittent problem that can be fixed with a firmware upgrade.
- Improved user experience. Today’s customers expect not only a product that meets their needs, but also a high-quality in-store experience. and employees face the challenge of providing superior access. State-of-the-art AI networking capabilities address these challenges by recommending ways to improve network performance without expensive upgrades, while meeting operational expectations and customer experience.
Top 5 Considerations When Evaluating AI-Powered Solutions
All AIOps solutions offer the ability to automate efficiency to some extent, but some offer significantly more than others. The most innovative option helps Day 0 and his Day 1 tasks and Day 2 responsibilities. Look for the following attributes to get the best solution to comprehensively address your specific retail networking challenges.
1. Intuitive and effective to use. In addition to providing a streamlined dashboard, other features of the innovative product include built-in features to assist with basic Day 0 activities such as Service Set Identifier (SSID) configuration and guest network setup. Includes natural language search. At a higher level, the best solutions offer features such as automatically baseline the performance and behavior of each location without manually configuring service level expectations. In other words, from the most senior IT team members to the newest, you should look for solutions that enhance the efforts of your entire team.
2. Detect behavioral anomalies. One of the surest signs of impending device failure or compromise is a change in behavior. Find AI networking solutions where AI and machine learning are trained on data from thousands of deployments and millions of devices and endpoints. It also utilizes clustering technology to help differentiate locations by size, number of network devices used, and number of clients. Whether it’s IoT or what employees and guests carry, we connect every day. Advanced AI networking solutions combine external data with internal location-generated information to provide precise insights for classifying behavioral anomalies.
3. Generate actionable insights. A robust AI networking solution does more than just crunch numbers and create a long list of problems to solve and optimization opportunities. The most advanced AIOps solutions range from reducing power consumption by changing the settings of a local WiFi access point (AP) to intermittent wireless issues by swapping questionable cables between certain APs and switches. We present our analysis as actionable recommendations, down to the elimination of the causes of Such actionable insights eliminate manual troubleshooting, guesswork, and time-consuming forensic tasks.
4. Adopt a full-stack and zero-trust approach. To maximize efficiency, the best solutions use AIOps and AI networking techniques throughout the network, including security enhancements. This includes accurate client information, AI-powered Zero Trust capabilities for visibility into which applications IoT and guest devices are accessing, and whether a device is exhibiting anomalous behavior. For example, if a stationary POS device or electronic shelf label exhibits roaming behavior, or initiates communication with an unknown resource, state-of-the-art AI networking solutions can detect anomalies in such behavior and identify the cause of the problem. can be quickly identified.
5. Incorporate AI into the overall network architecture. In addition to offering a full-stack approach, the most innovative solutions come from networking vendors that integrate AI networking throughout their architecture, from network devices to management solutions. This reduces acquisition and maintenance costs, minimizes manual configuration tasks, and accelerates development time across the organization. In general, tightly integrated solutions are more likely to provide more valuable insights at no additional cost.
Whichever networking solution you ultimately choose, it’s important to consider what role AI will play. As always-connected networks become a competitive imperative across the retail industry, how AIOps can provide insight and automate tasks to free up IT resources for higher-value projects and improve overall It’s important to consider how you can improve your business and competitive performance.
For more information on AIOps and related resources, see What is AIOps? or download the retail focused ebook AI for Today’s Strained IT Workforce.
Trent Fierro is a Senior Marketing Manager for AIOps and Cloud Solutions. HPE Aruba Networking. During his ten years of experience at HPE Aruba Networking, Fierro has overseen multiple wireless, wired, AI, security, location and management solutions for the company. With over 30 years of experience as an enterprise IT technology and marketing professional, he specializes in translating complex technology innovations into actionable insights for business and IT professionals.
