Sadly, effective artificial intelligence (AI) doesn’t ‘just happen.’ Your business will need to reevaluate and reengineer its platforms and infrastructure to take advantage of these emerging technologies.
To stay in the game there are three factors to consider as part of this process.
1. Smashing silos
Effective big data analytics relied on dismantling data silos. By ‘pooling’ data from a broader range of sources, analytics and insights become more granular, accurate and practical.
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have made silo smashing even more important. Training models require unrestricted access to data – and this is only possible by lowering barriers. A future-ready strategy must consider how data from every business operation can be centralised or accessed.
2. Unifying control
The reality is that silos are not going just to disappear overnight because line-of-business applications like ERP are siloed by design. Overcoming these barriers will require a dramatic simplification of management through a unified control system.
One approach to this challenge is through a single storage operating system, such as NetApp ONTAP. Migrating to a common platform simplifies and streamlines management, lowering costs in the process. It will also accelerate future expansion by simply adding additional storage to existing infrastructure.
This is especially true in a hybrid cloud environment. Having a single point of control for data, regardless of operations, increases transparency and productivity. Workloads are not getting any less complex, but the platforms that support them can.
3. Enhancing security
Data may be the single most valuable asset of your organisation, protecting it is a strategic priority. Safeguarding data against cyber threats is a crucial step towards minimising disruption to operations.
At the same time, emerging legislation is adding to your business’ compliance obligations. Global operations are still subject to localised data protection regulations – and your artificial intelligence operations must adhere to them all, regardless of where the data is stored or processed.
Again, the choice of platform will be critical. You will need the flexibility to adjust as compliance demands change without sacrificing performance. You also need a platform capable of scaling and applying security seamlessly on-premise, in the cloud and at the network edge.
Need more advice?
Artificial intelligence (AI) remains a rapidly evolving field – but that doesn’t mean you can afford to delay your AI strategy. Solutions like NetApp ONTAP offer AI-ready data storage platforms that can cope with your existing workloads and scale to meet your future needs.
To learn more about building your AI-ready tech stack and how NetApp technologies can assist, please give the WTL team a call to discuss.