The rapid emergence of practical artificial intelligence applications has exposed the problem of the data silo. Any organisation hoping to take advantage of AI must dismantle these barriers quickly – or risk losing ground to better-prepared competitors.

A common operating environment is just table stakes

The solution to dismantling all of these barriers is to introduce a new common operating environment, like NetApp. This will allow you to integrate operations across all major cloud providers. With a common control plane, it becomes easier to build artificial intelligence applications that can exploit each platform’s strengths.

However, the common operating environment is the very least every business needs. The reality is that future-ready AI apps will require much more.

Mobility as standard

What works for you today may not be suitable tomorrow. Cloud providers constantly add and remove functions and features that your AI applications rely on. Portability will be essential, allowing you to move classify, access, move and serve workloads from anywhere in your multi-cloud environment.

Given the complexity of such manoeuvres – and the time-critical nature of line-of-business applications – AI-optimised tools will be essential.

Optimised resource usage

The resource usage billing model is an excellent way to control capital spending – and to potentially blow your budget. AI and machine learning are resource-hungry, so you will need a platform capable of allocating and reallocating workloads to optimise GPU utilisation – automatically.

GPU allocation is critical model training – after all, the faster you can train your model, the faster you can productionise your model. Applying a data reduction ratio, like that provided by NetApp will further accelerate training, ensuring only relative information is ingested and processed.

Properly protected data

Whether used for machine learning, AI analytics or line-of-business operations, data is the lifeblood of your business. Lose access to your data because of ransomware and the impact could be catastrophic.

This threat keeps CTOs awake at night. The only way to avoid this problem is to choose a common operating environment that offers integrated immutability. Read-only datasets cannot be corrupted, protecting data – and the applications that rely on it. NetApp even offers a Ransomware Recovery Guarantee to back their immutability technology, ensuring your business is protected at every level.

For additional protection you will need to enable versioning and traceability, allowing you to meet compliance and responsible AI practices.

The choice of platform is critical.

As you can see, effective ML and AI require more than ‘just’ data. Your choice of infrastructure will be critical to making data available.

To learn more about how NetApp can transform and accelerate your machine learning and artificial intelligence efforts, please give the WTL team a call.

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Ransomware resolved

The source of many sleepless nights, ransomware remains a very real and present danger to every business. One moment of carelessness can infect corporate systems causing huge disruption, embarrassment and financial loss.

With BlueXP, NetApp has introduced several anti-malware features. Ransomware is stopped in its tracks by FPolicy, a behind-the-scenes detection engine. FPolicy uses machine learning and AI to analyse read/write operations, constantly on the lookout for malware. Suspicious users are blocked automatically and “questionable files” are not written to disk.

But it doesn’t stop there. With ransomware now targeted at backups and archives (to prevent recovery efforts), NetApp has introduced SnapLock. SnapLock offers immutable object storage, ensuring that backups cannot be overwritten, corrupted or accidentally deleted.

True disaster recovery

Thanks to cloud platforms, any business can develop cost-effective DR redundancy. Indeed, NetApp estimates businesses can realise $1m annual savings by moving disaster recovery to the cloud.

The process is simplified through SnapMirror, an automated, intelligent data replication feature. SnapMirror ensures that your systems are copied and available in the cloud in case of emergency.

In the event of a localised disaster, your infrastructure team can respond immediately. Workloads can be recovered in a single click to limit disruption and protect operations. Automation goes beyond basic alerts too with the ability to automate recovery operations. Disaster recovery is faster, less expensive and less at risk of human error.

Backups, but better

Backups are still an integral aspect of the NetApp offering. Users have complete control over the information that is collected, backed up and restored, allowing for granular recovery as required.

To better manage the consumption-based billing model of cloud platforms, NetApp also provides powerful deduplication capabilities. By automatically identifying and removing duplicate data, the system minimises the backup footprint – by as much as 50%. As a result, NetApp delivers 6x faster backups and users never pay for wasted cloud capacity.

The smart infrastructure choice

Taken together, these features help to explain why NetApp claim to offer “the most secure storage on the planet”. However, CTOs seeking additional assurance should also consider NetApp’s Ransomware Recovery Guarantee.

In the unlikely event that hackers breach the logical air gap between live systems and backup and manage to defeat the SnapLock immutable file protections, NetApp will pay compensation to “make it right”. This sounds like the kind of promise that only the manufacturers of the most secure storage on the planet would make.

To learn more about your cyber resilience options or the NetApp Ransomware Recovery Guarantee, please give us a call.

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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.

The post 3 Factors for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineering Success appeared first on WTL.

Making data storage more environmentally is now a significant, board-level KPI. To assist, NetApp has identified four key strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of your data storage infrastructure.

1. Reassess your storage strategy

The age of Big Data has encouraged businesses to collect and store as much information as they can. Compliance issues aside, storing unneeded data simply increases energy consumption in data centres. Your business should audit its data estate to identify what is truly necessary for your operations and eliminate the rest.

The next step is to be smarter about where the remaining data is stored. Data centres in regions with cooler climates or powered by renewable energy sources tend to be far more carbon-efficient, reducing the environmental impact of information stored there. For instance, storing data in countries like Iceland, where infrastructure often runs on geothermal or hydroelectric power, can significantly reduce your carbon footprint. Take the time to research data centre providers that operate in carbon-efficient locations or have robust commitments to sustainability.

2. Review your data infrastructure

Without first understanding your current data infrastructure and its environmental impact, you cannot accurately identify improvements. This includes knowing the energy consumption of your servers, where your data is stored, and how often it is accessed. Many businesses lack a full grasp of these factors, making it difficult to take strategic action toward reducing carbon emissions.

Monitoring energy usage across your data infrastructure will help you identify energy hotspots and take action where it’s most needed. For example, data that is frequently accessed might need to be stored on more efficient servers, while rarely accessed data could be moved to less energy-intensive storage solutions.

3. Adopt energy-efficient on-premises solutions

Upgrading to more energy-efficient hardware can make a significant difference. NetApp solutions are designed with energy efficiency in mind, offering higher storage capacities with lower energy consumption. By switching to more efficient hardware, you can cut down on energy without compromising on capacity.

Adjusting on-prem cooling to deliver better or using energy-efficient cooling technologies, can further reduce the carbon footprint of your data storage. Any upfront investment in on-prem hardware should deliver long-term savings in energy costs and carbon emissions.

4. Get smarter with cloud services

Cloud storage offers an incredibly efficient and scalable way to manage data. Many providers now offer tiered storage solutions, storing frequently accessed data on high-performance servers while moving rarely accessed data to low-energy, high-capacity servers. This kind of tiered storage helps minimise energy use (and cost) without sacrificing performance.

NetApp Cloud has made strong commitments to reducing carbon emissions from their data centres. NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is significantly more sustainable than traditional data storage methods.

Sustainability in computing is a multi-stage process

Sadly, sustainable IT is not a simple transition. Minimising your corporate carbon footprint takes diligence, planning and effort – but these four steps will point you in the right direction.

To learn more about planning for a zero-carbon storage future and sustainability in computing please give the WTL team a call.

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