Industry Verticals READY for Artificial Intelligence in 2018

Imagine what the world would be like if we could harness the multitude of data generated each day to catalyze positive change. What if we had the ability to predict and stop crimes before they happened, or could apply these same methodologies to save lives with better healthcare? Sound like the plots of many familiar movies? With recent advances in artificial intelligence, these outcomes are not only possible, but an exciting reality!

As we move swiftly into this new year, media, analysts and just about everyone is thinking about what will be ‘the next big thing’ in technology. Looking back at 2017, this was a hallmark year for AI enthusiasm and awareness. More industries and organizations embraced digital transformation and have come to value their data as a critical corporate asset. Now, building off of that momentum, 2018 will be the year that AI adoption reaches critical mass among organizations and professionals!

In speaking with customers over the past year, I’ve learned that many have already begun to experiment with machine and deep learning and artificial intelligence; some proactive customers have put AI-enabled capabilities into production, and nearly all are expected to make investments in the coming months. By the end of the year, we expect most enterprise customers will have one or more AI-enhanced services or products in production, and that the majority of smaller and mid-size companies will be executing AI technology evaluations and pilot programs (with some already in production as well).

When deployed strategically, AI technologies equip organizations to derive actionable data insights across virtually all industries, including energy, transportation, education, research, entertainment, hospitality, and so many more. In 2018, we predict the financial services, retail, healthcare and life sciences, and manufacturing industries will realize quick results with human-machine partnerships. Why is this the case?

Optimizing Financial Data

Financial services companies already possess vast data sets and conduct advanced analytics on business and customer trends. This expertise fosters an ideal culture for evaluating and adopting more powerful methods, as data becomes fuel for deep learning approaches. Artificial intelligence can be used to optimize all facets of financial data reporting, from risk assessments and growth projections to client satisfaction and fraud prevention. The ROI of attracting new customers is easily measured, and in 2018, these organizations can further improve performance by better understanding customer needs and reducing fraud and security breaches. As AI enables automated financial decisions at scale, it will converge with another disruptive technology, blockchain, to secure and validate automated transactions.

Maximizing Profit for Retailers

Retail has many potential uses for AI, such as understanding the target markets of products, improving advertising with personal information, and detecting fraudulent online purchases and theft in brick-and-mortar stores. Next year, these capabilities will increasingly become mainstream for small and mid-sized retailers. Dell EMC retail customers will continue to maximize profits by promoting offerings to the most likely buyers and predictively purchasing commodities by time and location. These AI-enabled successes set the foundation for future advances in retail operations, like implementing fully-automated customer support and autonomous product delivery operations.

Standardizing Efficiency in Healthcare

One of the reasons I love working in technology and for Dell EMC is the ability to help our customers leverage technology to advance human progress. In no field is that truer than in healthcare and life sciences, industries that are often the showcase examples for the power of artificial intelligence.

From the discussions we’re having with our healthcare customers, it is likely that in 2018, initial research projects will evolve into standard operating procedures. There is an abundance of image data for many medical ailments, like tumors, which is being used to train AI models to detect these conditions earlier and more accurately. Early results are so promising, that many healthcare providers will regularly use deep learning solutions to support the diagnosis of cancer and other severe conditions this year. I believe the impact of AI in healthcare will be both wide and deep; as healthcare records become progressively digitized and input into deep learning methods, they will help researchers understand health risks, improve detection and monitoring of conditions, and even predict health issues before they arise. That’s incredible progress! Moving forward, I believe that the era of personalized medicine will be furthered by pairing AI technologies with increasingly comprehensive and blockchain-secured data from IOT and other sources that complement lab results and caregiver observations.

Reducing Cost for Manufacturers

Cost reduction is of utmost importance to the manufacturing industry, whether the costs of components, failures, or maintenance. The ability to predict global supply chain costs and customer demand, and intercede before they occur, runs parallel to the advances in the financial services industry I wrote about above. Embedded within manufacturing facilities and complex equipment are sensors that measure item productivity and environmental conditions that impact reliability and maintenance, like power, temperature, and stressors. Our customers tell me that they are already benefitting from this data and leveraging it to develop AI-powered models to predict failures before they happen and improve customer satisfaction. For example, customers can be notified when firmware updates should be applied or support should be contacted, among many other use cases.  Deep learning technologies are so powerful that we use it to bolster the reliability and support of our own offerings.

To me it is clear – artificial intelligence and machine and deep learning will continue to grow as all types of organizations understand the incredible power offered by these technologies. That said, although revolutionary, the transformative results promised through artificial intelligence will not come without effort. To unlock the full capabilities of AI, organizations will have to do the heavy lifting of going “all in” on digital transformation, accelerating their computing methods, and embracing data sovereignty. It will be critical for data to be extensive collected, curated, and made available to all applicable uses cases.

It’s About Knowing Where to Start

Although artificial intelligence has been around for decades, it’s still difficult to understand and use effectively and requires the right expertise and technologies. Fortunately, Dell EMC is the premier vendor for data storage in the world, and we have decades of experience in managing data, enabling data analytics, and working with customers to design and deploy AI solutions for deeper insights. And, it’s about to get even better!

In 2018, building on extensive work with customers and partners, Dell EMC will make simple AI solutions available to customers in all verticals. As we recently announced, our Ready Bundles for Machine Learning and for Deep Learning bring AI capabilities to the masses, including global companies, research labs, governments, and educational institutions. Our carefully designed, optimized, reliable, and scalable solutions integrate advanced processors, storage and networking technologies, and powerful AI-optimized software. These solutions simplify selection, deployment, adoption, and usage for our customers, thus minimizing the cost, effort, and frustration associated with DIY and public cloud solutions.

AI is complex, but we’re focused on simplifying and accelerating the journey for customers and helping more organizations achieve its promise and potential in 2018. The revolution has begun, and we expect all businesses will use and benefit from AI-powered solutions as we close the decade. Dell EMC Ready Bundles for Machine Learning and Deep Learning will deliver these critical capabilities, empowering customers to innovate, compete, and change the world!

Continue reading

Transforming Security Requires the Right Security Culture

4,000 ransomware attacks per day, almost five times as many attacks on the Internet of Things within only 12 months, and twice the number of DDoS attacks during the same time period: These figures are a testament to the insatiable criminal energy of the hacker community, and are certainly alarming. In the context of increasing data quantities and the growing dependence of the worldwide economy on flawless and secure data handling, the rapid rise in the number of attacks can easily cause IT departments – as well as management – to feel sheer desperation. That’s because each time data is successfully stolen or an IT infrastructure is compromised, the targeted company doesn’t just stand to lose its competitive edge: Its entire survival can be at stake. The company’s image can also take a beating: According to a Deloitte study, 80 percent of all consumers prefer products from companies who appear to protect personal data more successfully.

Bearing all of this in mind, you would think that IT security takes absolutely top priority for CIOs and garners their full attention – right? Unfortunately, the reality of the situation looks different. Everyday operations (which also include daily defense against cyber attacks) eat up the majority of every IT department’s time, and do not leave much room for strategic tasks. Further issues are chronically insufficient IT budgets and, occasionally, a rather reckless attitude: Since data theft can basically only be determined by perusing the depths of endless security logs, many IT departments have opted to stick their head into the sand and failed to modernize their IT security. However, they need to recognize that data theft is a merciless reality for every company, whether it goes noticed or unnoticed.

Furthermore, there are notorious security silos. It is a widely known fact that security is mostly organized in a decentralized fashion in companies, meaning it is divided up based on departments or applications. For instance, the CRM department takes care of CRM security, the ERP department takes care of ERP security, and so on – everyone addresses their own security issues, and hardly any cooperation takes place. As a result, gigantic, home-made security gaps arise over time, and can hardly be handled with the current systems.

Given the extent to which companies depend on smooth IT operations, such gaps are no longer acceptable these days. How can they be remedied? Naturally, the security infrastructure must be modernized. As a further step, though, the organization will need to adjust: The CIO should ideally place the responsibility for IT security in the hands of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). A CISO should be responsible for a wide range of tasks – including communicating with management to familiarize them with IT security and its importance. I actually hear over and over again that IT teams are under serious pressure and forced to reduce security measures so as not to impair their respective company’s productivity. It’s understandable why upper management might put them in that situation, but in doing so, they’re playing a game of Russian roulette. Instead, they should use modern technology to maintain productivity without sacrificing security. Of course, the communication between the CISO and the management must also include negotiations on increasing security budgets.

The action list should additionally include rolling out a company-wide set of regulations, securing operational measures, modernizing the system, and training employees. The CISO must take new technologies into consideration – ranging from the cloud to the IoT – while engaging with the topic of compliance, particularly with a view to the European General Data Protection Regulation.

However, removing security gaps created by factors including home-grown security silos will probably constitutes the CISO’s most important task. In order to achieve this, the CISO must ensure that all persons responsible for silos and all department heads sit down together to make mutual decisions and remove barriers to the greatest possible extent.

Integrated security is often suggested in this context. This represents a great general approach, but unfortunately, it does not really do justice to the task at hand. Instead, companies should consider security from the vantage point of the digital transformation and focus on ‘security transformation.’ This concept comprises technology, infrastructure and organization as well as necessary changes to the security culture within companies. This culture will affect all levels and departments, ranging from the boardroom to the IT department (naturally) and individual, standard-level employees, who need to be aware of the consequences of a careless click in an e-mail. This kind of active security culture is the prerequisite for mounting an effective cyber defense.

Continue reading

The IoT Put to Practical Use: From Projects to Business Models

Although the Internet of Things (IoT) is making massive strides, development of the associated technology – which, in my opinion, numbers among the most exciting IT innovations over the past few decades – is still in its early stages. We still don’t know where the IoT will take us, but analysts have yet to revise their predictions for IoT development. Some of these are quite lofty: For example, certain sources predict that 26 billion IoT objects will be in circulation by 2020, while others have estimated this amount at a staggering 50 billion. Recently, I was surprised to read the following claim regarding IoT development: “In the future, we will be able to integrate nearly any desired physical object into the digital world.”

Enough is enough: I feel compelled to set the record straight. The purpose of the IoT can’t be to integrate ‘nearly any’ object; the underlying principle isn’t to exhaust the limits of technical possibility. There needs to be a practical business model in place behind any IoT application; without this, even the most impressive-seeming networking will not really amount to anything. As I see it, precisely therein lies the most important IoT-related gain that has been made over the past year: The IoT has outgrown the trial stage and become an established, integrated component of business models. The focus has shifted from trying to identify all the possibilities that the IoT has to offer towards using the IoT to make processes more efficient, as well as to enable entirely new processes. In concrete terms, this involves leveraging the IoT to generate revenue and/or save on costs. As such, the IoT is increasingly becoming a fixed component of many business models. Over the course of this development, several preferred areas of application have emerged. Below, I’ve put together a brief overview of the IoT projects we have implemented.

The smart home is often considered the IoT field of application par excellence, incorporating intelligent heating, sensor-controlled curtains, and, of course, the famous IoT refrigerator. While these applications elevate user comfort and security, they are not critical (except, perhaps, to the manufacturers behind them) in the sense that they haven’t become indispensable. For that reason, smart home innovations remain a niche market. Moving beyond the scope of user homes, I feel that the IoT is being put to excellent, practical use in commercial applications.

Industry and production: I don’t want to dredge up the well-worn example of elevators – that would be a disservice to the vast breadth of exciting applications currently used in the field of industry. For example, an Irish company is using an IoT solution to seamlessly monitor concrete production through all phases, from the manufacturing stages to provision at construction sites. This lets employees know precisely when concrete is dry, which allows them to further process it accordingly. Doing so no longer requires estimates or security buffers – which saves a great deal of time, and, therefore, costs.

Agriculture represents a frequently underestimated area of industrial production. The IoT has also taken root in this field – for example, a farm in India uses the IoT to control the health and milk production of its 6,000 head of cattle in real time. This immediately results in improved yields.

Retail: What works for concrete, also works for food: A large British supermarket chain with around 3,000 stores is using the IoT to ensure that the refrigeration chain for frozen products remains uninterrupted from the manufacturer’s facilities through to points of sale, and that the relevant cooling systems are used efficiently so energy isn’t wasted and food doesn’t spoil.

Energy: Many IoT applications are used in the generation of alternative energies. For instance, a Spanish manufacturer is using an IoT solution to monitor and control decentralized photovoltaic systems in a centralized way. This solution also includes weather sensors to enable quick responses to local conditions.

Meanwhile, in the field of healthcare, the frequently discussed fitness trackers are just the tip of the iceberg. In this industry, IoT systems are also used to monitor patients’ cardiac activity or blood sugar levels in their home environment so that the duration of hospital stays can be shortened; automatic alerting of emergency services can be life-saving in this context. Meanwhile, a retirement home in Thailand used an IoT system to reduce service response times by 50 percent, improve resident satisfaction, and reduce the number of nursing staff.

The IoT also plays a decisive role in the smart city. Municipalities use IoT applications to measure traffic flows in real time, which allows them to respond very quickly to congestion on particular routes. Other IoT applications enable intelligent control of street lighting, which sinks energy costs without sacrificing comfort or security for citizens.

All of the above examples illustrate that outside of corporate environments – or ‘out in the field,’ so to speak – IoT solutions often represent the sole means of receiving information about processes in a timely manner and, conversely, of immediately taking measures on-site that are necessary to optimize said processes. The IoT is already being put to practical use, but there is still a great deal of untapped potential as far as this is concerned. We can look forward to new and exciting application scenarios in the future.

Continue reading

Decoding Customer DNA with Data Science

Digital transformation is a directive that organizations of all shapes and sizes are striving to achieve and for those of us in services, it’s no different. We’re constantly innovating, implementing and improving on capabilities that make it easier for customers to adopt and optimize technology that will transform their businesses and lives. In the recently released Dell Technologies 2018 Predictions, reference was made to how things such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), machine learning and deep learning (ML, DL) – essentially data science – will work hand-in-hand with humans to enable deeper relationships with customers.

There’s a quote from MIT Media Lab founder, Nicholas Negroponte that says: “Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living.” I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to services, it’s no longer just about technology, it’s about making support and deployment as smooth as possible and enhancing and augmenting the customer’s experience with the products they’ve purchased.

Today, through connected technologies, we can proactively resolve system issues faster than ever before. We can even predict and address impending problems before they occur. So imagine the future impact that innovations in data science will have on the transformation of the service experience.

The Power of Customer DNA and Data Transparency

I’m a numbers guy. Coming from a background that includes finance and accounting, it’s no surprise I gravitate to them when contemplating and making decisions. From the simple act of using a calculator to track family vacation spending to leveraging the power of big data intelligence to predict outcomes, there is strength and even comfort in being able to base your actions on numeric proof. As customers navigate their digital transformations, they need us to take numbers and data further.

There are many facets of what we refer to as a customer’s “DNA” that need to be understood. Customer DNA goes beyond their IT environment. We need to consider their business objectives, priorities, processes, preferences, and their own customers – all the things that make them successful. The customer journey starts with pre-sales and progresses through multiple stages. IT customers today are already leveraging data-driven, connected technologies for automated proactive and predictive support capabilities, and as they stay connected, IT service providers will be able to better serve them by gaining more information about their systems’ health. Pairing that with other information such as manufacturing, repair, call log and part supply data will result in a more holistic understanding of that customer’s needs.

Transparency is also an important aspect of being able to provide timely value to customers through services. By putting predictive models in front of the customer, having collaborative conversations about the data, and giving them the ability to interact with and explore it, they will be able to ask the questions that are important to them so they can make decisions that are key to their day-to-day operations and how they move forward with their digital transformations. For instance, a customer may have a problem they are struggling to clearly identify within their environment. The data can uncover the true root cause of that issue, validating or negating their perception and helping them get to a better understanding of what’s going on.

Deep Learning = an Even Deeper Understanding

Over the next few years the transition from machine learning to deep learning will facilitate continuous growth models that along with the use of data contextualization, will provide better and better understanding of customer DNA. We use machine learning today with connected technologies leveraging AI for predictive cases, and deep learning, along with the added benefits it brings, is close at its heels.

With deep learning, we move from looking at a handful of scenarios to looking at hundreds of attributes over billions of records and can identify patterns that will equate to a faster, more accurate model that can be extended to multiple parts and lines of business. What used to take days or hours will take minutes and if we understand the behavior of each system in a customer’s environment, insight can be provided back to product design and sales so what is offered to the customer next will be based on their individual, customized needs.

One important theme to remember is that connectivity is a key enabler of this ongoing evolution. In order to train models to predict different aspects of the customer’s experience, it has to be a two-way conversation. The more data received and the farther back it goes, the more accurate and personalized the predictions.

Offsite Doesn’t Have to Mean out of Sight

AR is another exciting piece that will change how customers experience the delivery of services in the coming years. Things are moving from overlays where the repair technician wears an AR headset to bring up 2D instructions (a technical manual is projected to the upper right side of their vision) to entryways, where regardless of the orientation of the tech’s headset, the repair process is oriented in 3D to the exact object itself.

Applying that to connected technology, AI predictions would not only direct the technician to the problem, but with the added benefit of AR, they could perform the fix, reducing the need for higher level techs to go onsite. In addition to preventing and resolving issues, think about what this will mean in terms of possibilities for transferring knowledge to IT staff or being able to provide hands-on training to channel partners.

Faster Time to Insights = Faster Time to Value

As IT service providers, we must continue to recognize the power of getting the right information to the customer at the right time. We must equip our experts with the tools to help solve complex issues and break things down into accessible pieces of data customers can easily consume and act on. The faster we provide actionable insights, the faster issues are resolved and avoided, and system health and performance is optimized.

The innovation of data science enabled by the power of connected technology and the guidance of experts will speed time to value for customers on their investments and move the service experience into new realms. We will see IT services becoming even more predictive, more effortless and much more personalized. The transformative possibilities are truly limitless.

Continue reading

When the Going Gets Tough, the PowerEdge XR2 Gets Going

Presenting the Small but Mighty PowerEdge XR2

Picture a tiny, tough, mobile data center that packs a punch, fits into the tightest of spots, takes pretty much everything that might be thrown at it right on the chin, and still comes out fighting. You’ve got it – it’s the latest addition to the PowerEdge family – the brand new XR2.

Ideal for Tough Conditions and Tight Spaces

Part of our latest family of 14th generation servers, the XR2 offers the latest and greatest industry-first security features and enhanced systems management, but with the added benefit of being small, lightweight and rugged. This server is ideal for situations where you cannot use a standard-sized server, due to space limitations or tough conditions, but you still need a lot of compute power, close to the action, maybe for fog computing, virtualization, analytics or mass storage.

Light, Tough and Resistant

The XR2 measures just 52.5 cm (20.67 inches) rack depth and is lightweight at a maximum weight of 13kg (28lbs). It is resistant to shock and vibration plus capable of operating in temperatures of up to 45 degrees C° (113F°). In fact, it can tolerate 55 degrees C° for up to eight hours and is certified suitable for telecom and military use in situations, where failure is frankly not an option. The XR2 features an optional filtered bezel for improved dust protection. Compliant with DNV, IEC 60945, and MIL-STD-810G, this little beauty has optional, rugged sliding rails for installation in standard four-post racks or in transit cases.

Additional Security

In addition to all the usual PowerEdge security features that you have come to know and love, a common access card reader on the XR2 provides additional authentication. If, for whatever reason, you need to get out of dodge in a hurry, instead of taking a hammer to the server or being forced to pull out and carry the hard drives, all you need to do is simply remove the common access card reader and the server is rendered useless with all the data automatically encrypted.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going

In what situations would you need to use the XR2? Perhaps, you are an emergency responder, saving lives in the back of an ambulance? Maybe you work on a dusty factory floor or busy construction site? You could be sitting in the back of a Humvee in the desert on covert, military operations and need satellite communications to send critical information back to HQ. It is hot, dusty and sandy. If a mortar blows up a half a mile away, the server needs to remain operational. If so, the XR2 is right down your alley.

Alternatively, you could be running video surveillance operations on a large ship, down in the greasy engine room, dealing with vibrations caused by waves and high winds. Or you are perhaps doing mapping and spatial analytics on an oil rig in the Arctic in sub-zero temperatures. In all these situations, without a server, you have no way of filtering the data, making calculations on the fly, or conducting analytics at the edge. Everything must go back to the data center, resulting in delays and negative impact to cost, bandwidth, latency and storage. The good news is that in all these scenarios, the PowerEdge XR2 will shine.

Consistency From the Data Center to the Field

The XR2 reflects our 20 years plus experience in developing award-winning server technology. Other vendors tend to farm the technology out but we own the process end-to-end and are responsible for development, maintenance, sales and support. With this server, you get all the key tenets of the PowerEdge family – high performance, versatility, high storage availability, enterprise-grade, industry-leading components, flexible configuration options, global support, and the enhanced systems management of standard and OEM-ready servers.

IT Infrastructure Solutions for Every Environment

I’m guessing that when you hear the word “server”, you probably pictured racks in a secure, temperature-controlled data center environment with redundant connections to the Internet, power direct from one or more local utilities, diesel generators, vast banks of batteries and huge cooling systems. But, you can now add an image of the small, tough, lightweight PowerEdge XR2 on the move!

I believe that Dell EMC provides modern IT infrastructure solutions for every possible environment with the PowerEdge XR2 delivering Tier 1 quality and support to customers, who need rugged, small and powerful servers.

Continue reading

Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program Expands with More Products and Streamlined Maintenance Pricing

Dell EMC has improved the Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program with the addition of high end, unstructured and data protection storage products and straightforward support pricing.

Since Dell EMC announced the midrange products in the Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program less than 30 days ago, the response has been everything we could have hoped for. The feedback has been tremendous because the program offers buyers a sense of security and confidence when making a purchase decision.

Customers, partners, and even competitors all appreciate the business and technology value embodied by the program. Yet the one common question has been, “When do other products join the program?”  So in keeping with the customer-first value of our culture code, Dell EMC answered by adding new products to the Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program in the form of high-end, unstructured, and data protection storage products. And we bring the Clear Price Maintenance Framework for Storage Appliances, which we communicated to our ‘family’ at Dell EMC World last May, into the Future-Proof program.

This announcement adds Dell EMC VMAX All-Flash, XtremIO X2, Isilon, ECS (Elastic Cloud Storage) appliance, Data Domain and Integrated Data Protection Appliance (IDPA) to the list of products along with the midrange Dell EMC Unity and SC Series products in the Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program.

Future-Proof is a customer program designed to provide investment protection with a set of world-class technology capabilities and programs that enable Dell EMC storage products to provide value for the entire lifetime of applications. The Future-Proof program is different from other offers because there is no additional cost in terms of product price and only a standard maintenance contract is required.

Each of the benefits above are tailored to match the unique capabilities of each of the products and the specific requirements of the products’ respective users. And Clear Price delivers fair, cost-effective and predictable support costs for storage appliances.

New Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program highlights include:

◈ Products in the program now all carry a 3-Year Satisfaction Guarantee.

◈ Hardware Investment Protection has been a hallmark of Dell EMC primary storage products and is carried to VMAX All Flash, XtremIO X2, Isilon, Data Domain and IDPA in addition to Dell EMC Unity and SC Series.

◈ The Clear Price Maintenance Framework for Storage Appliances (Clear Price) is available for all products except SC Series.

◈ All-Flash products carry the 4:1 All-Flash Storage Efficiency Guarantee.

◈ Never-Worry Data Migrations help users transition to new storage technologies, led by VMAX All Flash, Isilon, and ECS, in addition to Dell EMC Unity and SC Series.

◈ All-Inclusive Software is provided for VMAX All Flash – shipping with its FX Package, XtremIO X2 and ECS, along with Dell EMC Unity and SC All-Flash products, to enable customers to get up and running with the software and licenses that come in the box.

◈ Built-In Virtustream Storage Cloud benefit is available only with Dell EMC Unity.

As a user of Dell EMC storage, the Future-Proof Storage Loyalty Program delivers lower acquisition and support costs as products evolve and improve, simple technology transitions, and the peace of mind that customers get more than what they pay for – backed by written guarantees.

Simply put, Future-Proof is all about our customers and offering them what we believe is the best loyalty program in the industry.

Continue reading

Accelerating Business Transformation

Here’s a prediction for 2018:  Business will continue to get more complicated and every enterprise or government agency will have competitors investing in business transformation. There is a wealth of data that suggests business transformation will play a role in sorting out winners from ‘also rans’. While new technology plays a key role in modernizing infrastructure for both on premises and public cloud-based offerings, transformation is about much more than hardware and software. A number of recent studies provide useful guidance for 2018 decision making with respect to modernizing IT operations in support of transformation initiatives.

Leaders and Laggards

A Forbes global survey of 500 C-level executives concluded that “there’s a large gap between transformation leaders and their less advanced peers”. Leaders, companies, whose sales and profits had grown by 7% or more, have IT leaders with tighter ties to the business, more advanced IT transformation strategies, and achieve faster ROI for IT transformation.

At Dell EMC, we embrace a Modernize, Automate, Transform (MAT) strategy both for our own IT strategy and for customers. At the highest level, this can be explained as a strategy to modernize IT infrastructure by leveraging the latest and most advanced technologies, automating IT processes through advanced software capabilities, and transforming organizations, business processes and skill sets through education, training and services.  Increasingly, these strategies are predicated on a foundation of converged and hyper-converged (CI/HCI) infrastructure, and we observe that organizations getting the most value from their CI and HCI investments saw the need to transform from an organization that managed infrastructure components in silos to one that manages infrastructure more holistically. They built an IT Services model that delivers more business agility and improved business outcomes. They drove operational change and developed mechanisms for measuring business outcomes. As a result, they have achieved much higher ROI.

Becoming a Leader

This approach isn’t all that surprising. You’ve heard it before. You need to change people, process, and technology to achieve value. It takes time to do that, so you should not expect immediate results. However, when ESG analyzed the correlation between IT maturity and a range of business outcomes, they found that IT metrics improved at each stage of IT maturity. The positive correlation held for KPIs ranging from projects completed ahead of schedule to over achievement of revenue goals. ESG further reported that IT organizations implementing self-service portals are freed up from more mundane tasks to focus on business priorities.

That‘s good news!

An IT service orientation results in better organizational alignment and business outcomes, as shown by an IDC study, based on a survey of over 2500 senior managers and executives.  It concluded that “enterprises in which the IT organization has a strong service orientation reported a 100% greater increase in bookings, a nearly 80% greater increase in inventory turns, and a 140% greater improvement in employee time spent serving customers”. But there is more to it. IDC reports that, over 3 years, “enterprises in which the IT organization works proactively with the business” reported:

◈ 50% greater improvement in compliance-related activities
◈ 80% greater growth in revenue from established product lines
◈ 90% greater growth in revenue from new product lines.”

Chargeback mechanisms can aid in the process. IDC reports that implementing chargeback mechanisms enables the business to ensure that IT expense is aligned with business priorities. Companies that implemented chargeback report increases in employee productivity and improvement in profit margin.

Measuring Results

It is important to set expectations and establish an ongoing process for reviewing progress. You will want to have a plan to evolve organizational roles, structures and processes, and for measuring progress at each step as the IT organization matures.

Metrics should address both financial and non-financial goals to enable IT to demonstrate support of strategic initiatives.

As the organization matures, focus especially on the metrics that matter most to the business. These might include time to roll out new applications, or the headcount required to support application growth. Begin with a baseline and plan on developing measurements that, while not precise, will indicate whether you are on the right track or whether a course correction is needed.

Charting and Staying the Course

IT investment can drive the business but it is essential to evaluate and measure the benefits. A Business Value Approach to IT Investing, offers sound advice for those evaluating a new investment. The Customer Value Program can help you create the baseline measurements for your organization, monitor and report on progress, and commit to continuous improvement.

In addition, Dell EMC offers a portfolio of services to help you accelerate time to value and optimize business outcomes. Our expertise is based on work with successful companies and with our own data center transformation. Whether you want get a jump on organizing for success, or need some assistance as you get started, we are ready to help you improve business outcomes.

Continue reading

From Big Data to Big Intelligence: Six Key Trends Shaping IT for 2018

The turn of the calendar always brings the opportunity to both reflect and look forward. Technology continues to accelerate and the level of digital disruption continues to expand. Now is a good time to consider what’s happened in the last 365 days and contemplate what’s likely to happen next in this digital technology ecosystem that continues to be core to almost every business with new technical capabilities that bring us both unexpected opportunities and threats.

Dell Technologies recently issued its predictions for 2018 – and in looking back, many of Dell Technologies’ 2017 predictions are coming to fruition and evolving rapidly – from the New Media Evolution to Deep Learning and finally IoT sparking demand for a new level of accountability.  We at Dell Technologies even announced our own IoT division with VMware CTO, and now Dell Technologies’ IoT GM, Ray O’Farrell at the helm to drive a comprehensive and coordinated strategy – in close partnership with leading edge customers and solutions providers.

Some of the most exciting emerging technologies of 2017 were in the general use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning – rapidly transforming data into actionable insights for many leading edge organizations.  Approximately 1,500 companies in North America alone have initiated projects related to AI – with an estimated 71% of enterprise applications expected to leverage AI by the year 2021 (IDC).  AI projects tend to be at the core of business systems and processes. All of that AI is powered by data, delivered via compute, and connected with networks that drive a new need for enhanced data protection and end-point security strategies.

There are a number of important trends that are being shaped by the convergence of data, advances in processing and economies of scale in the data center that we’ll see this year – below are my top six to watch.

Big Data Becomes Big Intelligence and Big Business

Extracting business value from large data sets is certainly not a new trend this year, but the sources of that data are both growing and diversifying significantly. Collecting, consolidating and analyzing data from the “edge” is critical, stemming from billions (and eventually trillions) of devices, apps and systems.  Figuring how to make use of the flood of this data will be a key focus for many enterprises this year.

Relatedly, we’ll see data unleash new possibilities in AI for business intelligence – and revenues.  IDC is predicting that by 2020, 90% of large enterprises will generate revenue from data as a service – where raw data, metrics, insights and recommendations emerge as a revenue stream and business opportunity – and subsequently fuel even greater predictability of business trends, enhance product cycles and innovation, and much more.

However, the major difference between these new AI driven systems and the past few years of big data and analytics is that more and more of the AI systems are being used in core real time business systems so they not only need to process and reason over huge data sets but they need to do that at a speed of outcome that can influence the real time flow of business. To achieve this will require the combination of storage and compute innovation.

The Data Center Is No Longer “The Center” for Data – We Need a Mega-Cloud

The explosion of data has created a highly-distributed ecosystem across increasingly decentralized data sources.  While most of the existing data processing is done in the core of the IT data centers today, as we look forward the ability to gain insights from data will spread throughout the enterprise IT topology – from the device, to the edge to the core to the public clouds. The key will be to develop architectures that allow the combined insight of the dispersed data to be used in the place where it can have the most impact and that may not always be the same area of the enterprise.

One emerging concept to better coordinate this multi-cloud world is the intelligent ‘mega cloud’ that we discussed in our 2018 prediction #1.  Many customers are finding – or will soon find – themselves struggling with silos of data that are a result of a multi-cloud environment. Data gravity – the larger the amount of data, the more applications, services and other data will be attracted to it and the more quickly those will be drawn to the data body – partitioning can be a significant impediment to gaining the in-depth insight and impact organizations seek as more and more information is captured. Additionally, issues like compliance and regulatory requirements, IP protection, and data leakage only compound the problem.

A mega cloud solves the issue of cloud silos by taking a holistic view to the collection of clouds that the enterprise interacts with to ensure that the right data is housed in the right place. It brings together multiple public and private clouds, as well as leverages data coming in from the edge and at the core. By evolving to have a single view into the multi cloud environment and creating consistency between clouds at the software, hardware, and services layers, enterprises are far more likely to be able to connect the right data sets to the best processing capability in the correct place to impact their business and make visions such as AI a reality.

The Maturation of New Media / Persistent Media

New forms of persistent media are emerging, blurring the distinction between large memory and fast storage, to tackle a new set of high-value workload requirements. These media will change the way that we view the intersection of application performance, storage density, and data placement. New media cost, capacity, and performance attributes will deliver new benefits for the most demanding workloads. New media technologies will be used as new tiers of data center storage, delivering more IOPs, lower latency and higher density. They will be used to deliver larger, more cost effective infrastructure for in memory workloads. As these technologies mature, they will enable an entire new class of workload-enhanced ‘collapsed servers’, containing fast and dense new media, SDN and virtual security tools, and new types of specialized processors, all tuned to host high performance applications. These “Decision Servers” will enable more rapid, relevant, and impactful business insights than ever before.

2017 brought with it the rapid adoption of a new host-storage interface: NVMe. Anticipating the capabilities and performance of new media, NVMe is architected to bring storage media directly onto the PCIe bus, closer to the processor, to reduce SW overhead and to exploit the advances of multi-core processors for server and storage system applications. While initially used with flash storage today, NVMe is expected to be the preferred SSD interface for low latency storage class memory (SCM) technologies. Finally, with the emergence of NVMe-OverFabrics, the benefits of NVMe will be extended to seamlessly operate across lossless, low-latency data center fabrics such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and InfiniBand.

IT Infrastructure Accelerates Its IQ for AI and IoT

With enterprise business requirements quickly evolving to deliver the benefits of data and AI, new requirements for IT infrastructure are emerging to ensure that this new distributed data environment is effectively monitored, managed, stored, secured and protected. It must be delivered cost effectively, within already tight IT budgets – and it must achieve demanding, sub-millisecond response times. This means that intelligence and efficiency must co-exist at the edge, core and cloud, driving server, storage and data protection design requirements that fully embrace new interconnect models like NVMe, diverse processing capabilities like FPGAs and GPUs and the growth of high speed in-memory data management workloads.

Embedded analytics and automation, enabled by machine learning, will become a default requirement for dynamic, consumption-based application and IT infrastructure provisioning. As I put it in our 2018 predictions, AI will do the “thinking tasks” at speed.  The “brains” of the IT infrastructure will evolve to quickly and efficiently recognize, analyze and label data, know what data goes where, identify how it needs to be stored and accessed in the future, and decide where it needs to live specifically. The payoff? Optimal costs, speed and efficiency for tactical IT functions, freeing up time, talent, and budget for more strategic projects that maximize an organization’s ability to take advantage of all that data.

Organizations Adopt a Security Culture

There are an average of 4,000 ransomware attacks per day with hackers gaining intelligence and skill with every attack. Protecting and securing our most valuable data is becoming increasingly complex as the way we capture, store and draw insight from that data becomes increasingly sophisticated. It’s not sufficient to just have multiple copies of data in different places. You must assure that the copies are uncompromised, protected and can endure even in the most catastrophic of events. This has led to new technologies such as the Dell EMC Isolated Recovery Solution (IRS) that blends data protection and content security in a way that has now been shown to survive some of the most destructive attacks ever seen.

Additionally, the continued and expanding deperimeterization has changed the ways in which we need to view security. We expect to see the complexity of application placement become a foundational focus. Applications generate data that enterprises must be able to intelligently place and intelligently protect. Employing ‘security chains’ via Software Defined Networking technologies, such as NSX, associate application components as they are deployed with security capabilities logically and dynamically. This is rapidly becoming the primary way to lower risks while increasing visibility, creating a truly a new world of data security.

Organizations can’t simply make security a solution – they’ll need to deeply integrate it as part of their corporate culture where everyone, CEOs included, need to be invested in protecting the crown jewels. Further, consumers and customers are becoming increasingly vigilant, putting their trust and ultimately their business and loyalty with the organizations that prove they’re able to stay one step ahead of cyber attackers and malware. As a result, we’ll see progress in security transformation this year that shores up end-point security across a diverse and distributed mobile workforce and IT infrastructure.

IoT Takes Enterprise IT and Digital Strategy to the Mat: Transform or It’s a TKO

In 2015, the IoT market reached $900 million, and it’s predicted to grow to $3.7 billion by 2020 – only a little over two years away.  IoT forms the basis for new decision making and directional shifts within the business, and allows companies to remain competitive in nearly every market – healthcare, agriculture, automotive, banking, education, manufacturing, and many other industries. It will require new investments across the board but particularly in the evolution (or potentially revolution) of IT infrastructure.

The data generated by IoT will quickly exceed the capacity of traditional data centers.  To digitally transform, customers will rely on edge, core, and cloud components, from hyperscale data centers to optimized servers that can handle large and dynamic workloads at the edge.

IoT clearly changes the storage game as well. The 451Group recently conducted a survey where respondents said they expect to increase storage capacity by an average of 35.9 percent over the next year due to IoT activity, with security concerns being central to IoT strategies and deployment plans. As discussed in #4 above, innovation in the data center plays a critical role in developing a holistic, intelligent IT infrastructure that maximizes the power of the IoT information captured.

Last but never least, IoT is driving the need for mission-critical services at the network edge for emergency services, real-time communications for autonomous vehicles (Vehicle-to-Vehicle, and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure), and the tactile Internet (drones, robotics, etc.) – they all require a level of real-time, two-way communication.  A new battle for the network edge among cloud and service providers will commence with a focus on “fog” computing that exists between the edge and the cloud.

2018 is going to be yet another disruptive year in the world of emerging technologies. These six predictions tell a story driven by data – how it’s managed, stored, processed, protected and exploited – to reduce risk, derive value, and create new, meaningful opportunities. Data is the key.

Continue reading

Deal Registration from Anywhere, at Any Time with the Dell EMC Partner App

You’ve just had a great customer meeting and there’s a major opportunity coming down the pipeline. You want to register the deal right away, but you still have three more client calls to make before returning to the office. You know that if you don’t lock in the opportunity, you could lose out on potential discounts and a preferred partner status…

Enter the Dell EMC Partner app, which makes it easy for you to register deals on the go, from almost anywhere and at any time.

This intuitive app lets you register a deal, check a deal’s status (won, lost, cancelled) and retrieve supplementary deal status information. With the Dell EMC Partner app, you’ll know immediately the number of days until a deal expires or the stage of active deals (e.g. “qualified 30%”). In addition, the Dell EMC Partner app enables you to be more productive—giving you more time with clients and reducing the amount of time you spend on administrative tasks.

Newly Launched

The just-launched Dell EMC Partner app (which replaces the Dell PartnerDirect App) makes it easier to register deals on the go. The app will initially be available in 14 countries including USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, UK, Germany, France, India, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, and Japan, The release of this app includes an upgraded authentication method. Simply use your Partner Portal login to access the app—and all of your deals.

Some of the features of the Dell EMC Partner app include:

Easy Deal Registration – Register a deal with Dell EMC faster. Simply create a deal, add products and submit—all with just a few clicks.

Check Deal Status – Monitor the status of your deals right from the app; and receive alerts when a deal is about to expire.

Save Draft Deals – The app enables you to create a deal draft and then submit to Dell EMC only when you are ready. Within the app, you can take notes, enter deal info, add products and save as a draft.

Continue reading

Automated Data Protection for Virtualized, Mission-Critical Apps

As a channel partner, you need ways to help your customers protect their data and also set yourself apart from the competition. That’s what you get with the updated and greatly enhanced Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications. With this solution your customers gain three key, game-changing advantages: performance, automation and self-service.

Here are more details on each:

Performance

Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications uses three direct data paths either from the application, hypervisor or Dell EMC primary storage to Dell EMC Data Domain protection storage. Direct data paths boost backup and restore performances dramatically, compared to traditional approaches that typically require intermediary servers. Take these performance gains compared to traditional backup methods, for example:

◈ Application direct: Up to 50% faster backups than traditional backup methods, up to 99% bandwidth reductions
◈ Storage direct: Up to 20x faster backups than traditional backup methods, 10x faster data recovery
◈ Hypervisor direct: Up to 5x faster backups than traditional backup methods

Direct data paths reduce or eliminate impacts to application servers, which could otherwise degrade performance of the applications they support. The same goes for protecting data generated from applications using hypervisors on virtual machines, which can be difficult to back up with conventional data protection tools. By broadening the scope of coverage and accelerating performance so significantly, admins can meet even the most stringent service-level objectives (SLOs) for mission-critical applications.

By eliminating intermediary servers customers can reduce the amount of infrastructure needed, which can save both capital costs and operating expenses, the latter by reducing data center space and power requirements. It also saves IT staff the time needed for associated management and maintenance chores.

Automation

Most organizations face an explosion not only in data volumes but also in different data sources and types. This adds complexity and scalability challenges, and manual processes can’t keep up. That’s compounded by the many work groups, departments and entire lines of business (LOBs) spinning up applications on their own, with latencies of days or weeks before IT can provide data protection coverage.

To address this, Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications can automate asset discovery, then provision and assign protection levels to those assets. This can save IT staff time, while also providing much more visibility, agility and scale to keep pace with growing and ever-changing needs. It greatly simplifies and streamlines the entire process, enabling more cooperation between various data administrators who sit in different parts of an organization. Plus, it helps IT staff apply common data protection standards and governance across the organization that can be difficult to achieve with competitors’ conventional means.

Self-Service

LOBs in many organizations have taken to deploying their own applications, virtual machines and databases, leading to what we might call “PYOD” — protect your own data.

So, rather than fight that trend or, worse, leave the LOBs without the guidance, governance and tools to protect their data, the Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications platform enables IT to use the trend to everyone’s benefit. How? By empowering application owners to control their own backups using their native GUI tools, while staying compliant with IT data protection policies.

These self-service capabilities complement the automation features of Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications, which provides much more data protection standardization and better governance and visibility.

The enhanced Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications software provides you with many ways to deliver innovative, highly differentiated data protection solutions to your customers. These can open doors to new opportunities for high-margin sales and setting yourself apart in the market. You can also cross-sell to existing Dell EMC Data Domain users or existing customers who don’t yet have modern data protection by offering them a tightly integrated solution of Dell EMC Data Domain hardware and Dell EMC Data Protection Suite for Applications software. After all, they are “better together” for superior deduplication and performance.

Continue reading

Is It Time To Revisit Your Architectural Strategy?

Like many industries, it’s easy for financial services companies to get complacent and fall into lulls. We’ve all been there, you get into a process, you build out the process, you get comfortable with it and you don’t generally question the process.

But we’re living in a new world order when it comes to security, risk, hacks and breaches, spanning cyberterrorism, identity fraud, nation states and the like – which all bring significant and dire consequences for financial services organizations and their customers.

Data has become a commodity – and the reality is that data has a monetary value. Personal and identity-related data has an even higher monetary value. And financial services, whether that’s fintech, banking, credit reporting or others, all possess the highest-grade data available, putting the value associated with that data that much higher.

What boggles my mind is that in this new world order of increasingly sophisticated threats, coupled with the rising value of data, why aren’t more financial services institutions making security a priority, and more so a continual priority since day one? Why aren’t they being more vigilant?

The answer is threefold and it comes down to three big vices plaguing the financial services and the broader business communities:

Inertia

The reality is that big companies generally don’t move very fast. There’s a tendency not to change things unless they’re broken, and that applies to everything from corporate policies to IT infrastructure. It can be a challenge to rationalize an investment in something that appears to be working well, whether it’s poorly architected or not.

However, as the headlines have shown in recent months, it’s paramount that financial services organizations examine their authentication strategies, their encryption strategies, and their architectural strategies. This involves also putting good “cyber hygiene” strategies into play such as applying security patches and doing the due diligence to ensure architectures minimize risks with data at rest encryption, among others protective measures.

No doubt it’s difficult to try and unwind a systemic culture of inertia, but getting continued investment for systems that just appear healthy may not be the greatest option longer term.

Hubris

No one believes their company will be compromised, despite the overwhelming odds that almost everyone over time will be compromised. Just like the children of Lake Wobegon that are “greater than average,” many companies believe with confidence that their architecture and security will beat the odds. This is all the more so with large companies with strong track records of success. Again – as recent headlines show – security is not a “fix it and forget it” endeavor.

Naivet

People in large companies too often want to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to security and risk and think “this couldn’t possible happen to me.”

So where does the responsibility fall when it comes to security? Is it with the CSO? IT? The general manager? It’s really all of the above, in a true security crisis it’s useless to point fingers. Sure, the CSO is often the executive that takes responsibility, but they can’t be expected to defend everything and their budget isn’t limitless.

For emerging financial services institutions, many of which may not have a strong security background, it’s a matter of engaging in a dialogue about what’s truly at risk when storing their customers’ personal information. This includes the holistic architecture that has been constructed and its long-term viability in an increasingly dynamic industry.

Consider the three vices discussed above and have a frank and honest evaluation of whether your financial services organization might be guilty of any of them. Is there a good cyber strategy in place? Are new security patches being downloaded and installed? If massive corporations and credit reporting agencies such as…..well, you know them by now in the headlines….are being hacked and crippled by Cybercriminals, what’s to stop your organization from being the next victim?  If you don’t want your analytics, trading, or cloud platforms left without solid security, we welcome a deeper discussion around how not to be a cybersecurity target.

Continue reading

Changing Business Mindsets is Key to a Successful API Strategy

As today’s online retail and service giants demonstrate, if you want to transform your organization to compete in the fast-moving digital economy, you need to start with an application programming interface (API) strategy.

But be prepared. Getting the technology in place to host and manage these essential building blocks for connecting people, business, and things is only part of building an API ecosystem. The real challenge is in getting your technical and business stakeholders to understand and embrace the benefits of APIs.

An API strategy success requires a collaborative effort. The business has to understand the value of APIs; and the technical people who are building APIs have to understand how they are going to help the business and determine the API hosting platform that is needed.

The good news is, the agility and business value APIs create are compelling reasons for your Sales, Marketing, HR, Customer Service, and other user groups to want to tap into an API strategy.

Over the past few years, the Dell IT API Strategy Team has been working to establish an API platform and inspire business users to adopt an “API First” mindset across Dell Technologies. While we are still in the midst of educating business users on why and how to leverage APIs, here are some insights we have learned that may help you with this important transformation.

Not your old-school API

You probably know by now that APIs have evolved far beyond the old-school version of a piece of software to provide a system to system integrations. Technically, a modern API is a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing a Web-based software application or a Web tool.

More expansively, APIs are now being used as gateways to unlock all of your digital assets and data for use by IT and other internal business units and departments as well as external businesses, customers, and partners. These coded subsets of business capabilities become critical components for applications to support new business models and new business channels.

The goal is to create an API ecosystem centered on a central catalogue where IT clients can create and publish APIs for consumption and from which users can consume them to connect more quickly with capabilities. APIs can then be leveraged to engage with partners and customers. In turn, API owners can get a view of who is using their interface.

What can be expressed as an API? Just about everything.

For example, one possible use would be a store selling laptops that wants to tap into what products are available from Dell so it can show them on its website. With an established API catalogue with provisions for product resellers, that store could access APIs that tell it about all of the different Dell laptops and incorporate those APIs into the store website to be viewed by customers. The store could be assured the information it taps into is current since the API is kept up to date by the business entity that created it.

Or a developer who is building an application that uses a certain customer data subset, rather than having to have IT extract that information from the data lake for the app, could check the API catalogue to see if it already exists. By subscribing to that API and using it in the app, the developer saves time and avoids duplicating efforts.

APIs can also be used to provide product updates via a customer-facing portal, supply the latest sales leads, upgrade product feature for company channel partners, check on customers’ install base, and much more.

The catalogue is set up with various categories so users can scan what is offered in what business areas. And eventually, APIs also have potential to be monetized, though Dell has not yet tackled that prospect.

Setting the stage and reaching out

A few years ago, when Dell IT first began forging an API strategy, we were very centered on service oriented architecture (SOA) and with no discovery and no self-service.  We had no catalogue but only used APIs in the traditional sense to connect systems together, and they were pretty much siloed business-to-business.

We began by setting up an API hosting platform which would allow users to quickly build capabilities and share them.

There are many API platforms available in the market. Look for one which has out-of-the-box features to provide easy onboarding for developers and end-to-end visibility of your API performance. Remember, it is all about agility.

With the platform in place, we then began reaching out to business units to educate them on APIs and begin building our catalogue.

One compelling question to pose to business clients: What if you could go to a central catalogue and look up subsets of data sets for Sales, HR, Marketing, Engineering, Analytics, Products and more in the form of APIs and easily access them and use them however you need to?

The process of getting business units to create new APIs and express existing capabilities in APIs is a time-consuming one. But we are making progress.

Some Lessons Learned

1. The technology part is easier but changing peoples’ mindset to transform is pretty hard.

2. Support for API adoption needs to come from the top down as well as the bottom up. It should be sponsored by business leaders because it’s all about the business. And it requires widespread buy-in across the organization as a cultural change from traditional ways of operating.

3. The management has to understand and convey the fact that that transformation will in fact create more value as well as an increased appetite for innovation and a greater competitive edge.

4. Always start with smaller strategy implementations and see the successes instead of going for a big bang. For instance, take one department or one business unit and have them transform to an API approach. That will speak for other departments.

5. Point out the benefits that developers, and thus the business units they work for, gain both from not having to repeat work and from gaining visibility into how their APIs are performing.

Changing the business mindset across your organization will certainly take time and education. But I am confident that the API strategy will resonate with businesses and developers at my company and yours as an essential part of digital transformation.

Continue reading