TRENDING will be strategically important in the coming years and 15 % are already hosting application security and delivery technology at the Edge .
“ Organisations are definitely starting to look at the Edge with more purpose ,” MacVittie explained .
“ Cloud data centres , while supporting ubiquitous access , are only slightly more distributed than onpremises data centres . By contrast , the Edge enables organisations to deliver applications closer to users . In many ways , the Edge is just the next step outward in an expanding universe of distributed applications , with benefits – and drawbacks – aligned with those of multicloud strategies . Data analytics represents a key edge use case , enabling the insights required for Digital Transformation initiatives .”
Another Edge use case highlighted by the SOAS report is the distribution of modern workers . More than a third ( 42 %) will support a fully remote workforce for the foreseeable future . Only 15 % plan to require all employees to return to the office .
Organisations have data but lack insights and skills
More than half of SOAS respondents believe they already have the tools they need to report on the health of high-priority applications . Nevertheless , an alarming 95 % say they are missing insights from their existing monitoring and analytics solutions .
Respondents agreed that the data collected by their tools is primarily used for troubleshooting , followed by early warnings about performance
Half of those respondents cited a paucity of skilled professionals as their number one challenge . problems . Worryingly , a mere 12 % report the data back to business units , whereas fewer than 24 % of organisations use data and insights to watch for potential performance degradations . By contrast , when it comes to monitoring components that modernise apps , nearly two-thirds of respondents ( 62 %) are measuring performance in terms of response time .
Conscious of a need to do better , over 80 % of respondents said that data and telemetry are ‘ very important ’ to their security plans and over half are ‘ looking forward ’ to the beneficial impacts of AI .
Survey respondents also flagged platforms that combine Big Data and Machine Learning ( also known as AIOps ) as the second most strategic trend in the next two to five years .
At the same time , that enthusiasm could be blunted by a lack of emerging , relevant skillsets in the market . This is particularly true for those identifying AIOps as their top strategic trend . Half of those respondents cited a paucity of skilled professionals as their number one challenge .
The road ahead
“ Only organisations with the right combination of insights and automation will be able to sort through overwhelming data , recognise looming availability and performance issues before they occur and act quickly enough to prevent them ,” MacVittie added .
“ Until then , many won ’ t be able to take full advantage of their progress in Digital Transformation or generate additional speed towards AI-enabled businesses .
“ Ultimately , this will require an application strategy that includes application security and delivery technology solutions that follow the apps , even as deployments continue to be spread among multiple environments positioned nearer to users and at the Edge .” p
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