Running AI on legacy infra is like singing without knowing the lyrics

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“IT DEPENDS”, a common phrase that shouldn’t apply to many aspects of digital success. The answer of this article is: IT DOESN’T DEPEND.

How would it feel to sing a song on a stage in front of 200 people without knowing the lyrics? How would Nutella taste on moulded bread? Take a moment to think about it. Read the sentences again. How would it feel?

This is how organizations feel when they desire to be the next Netflix but don’t have the right technology foundations to succeed. Every organization desires to transform their own industry or at least keep in touch with those who do. A lot of organizations want to jump straight away to advanced scenarios such as AI or IoT, without having the right foundations to succeed. In other words, they are putting Nutella on a moulded piece of bread or trying to sing without knowing the lyrics.

To put it in example, not long ago I decided to delight my parents by paying for their lunch at a very nice restaurant. When I inquired about paying online, the restaurant asked me to send them my credit card number and CVC via email ?!?!? You can’t go about providing online payments option if you do not have the underlying systems that can securely and efficiently support it.

Rigid, outdated and non-cloud related IT infrastructure is probably the single biggest obstacle leading to failed digital success.

So how should IT infrastructure look like? IT DOESN’T DEPEND!, it has to be Transparent, Flexible and Resilient. Missing out on a single one of these leads to certain failure.

Transparent

Does a manufacturing company know how many machines it operates and what are the specifics of lead times, bottlenecks and fill rates? Yes, it’s all there well documented, on top of everyone’s agenda. IT infrastructure is the biggest disruptor of the past decade yet plenty of organizations don’t have clue what they operate with and what are the dependencies between relevant parts.

It is in human nature to feel confident, happy and to achieve success when things are under control. Making sure that IT understands their technology stack is the first step to gaining control and achieving digital success. Movere and Azure Monitor are tools that provide fast and detailed overview of a technology stack. See how you can take advantage of them:

Flexible

Does a company own cars that are utilized only 10% of the time? Hmm, probably not. They rather rent the cars or sign the contract with a Taxi service company based on transportation demand. Makes total sense. Not the case with IT infrastructure, most of the companies have several servers way underutilized, operating at 15% capacity give or take. Making sure that machines are heavily utilized and that there is always enough of them at the same time is key and only possible by utilizing cloud environment.

Today’s world does not ask for agility but rather requires it in order to survive. According to International Data Corporation (IDC)

60% of digital transformation initiatives will be unable to scale due to lack of strategic architecture.

For instance, say a university decides to offer online learning service backed with AI. Does it have infrastructure in place to accommodate for this or will it take 3 long years and countless lost students to get there?

Resilient

Does a retail company have a high fence, cameras and alarms around a warehouse? Sounds about right. Yet there is no budget and intent to maximise the security of sensitive data which if in the wrong hands may put an organization out of business.

77% of IT pros believe that their enterprise will be hacked in the next 12 months and 48% of the respondents say they are not ready for it.

Gone are the days when making sure that the uninvited guests don’t enter the network was enough. A modern security approach must do much more, among other things it has to be able to spot the intruders when they have successfully entered the network, finding network anomalies and rapidly isolating infected resources to prevent spreading.

Well established trust with customers, partners and authorities is at the core of every successful organization. A big part of the trust equation relies on superb cyber security practice, committing to excellence by adhering to standards such as ISO, ITA and HIPAA. Adhering and continuously supervising is the first step which must be reinforced with the ability to provide proof of adherence to customers, partners and authorities. Take a look at how Microsoft helps organizations monitor and prove their IT infra compliance.

In conclusion, every organization decides what kind of bread goes best with their Nutella and whether mumbling instead of singing is good enough. But one this is clear, Nutella on a moulded bread tastes awful and mumbling is not singing. Take the IT DOESN’T DEPEND approach and start your digital journey by implementing Transparent, Flexible and Resilient infrastructure. This is the only way to sing while enjoying a tasty Nutella sandwich.

Bon apetit