Evolution of Monitoring

Having started my IT Career in the 80’s, I’ve had a front row seat to the ever-evolving landscape that makes up IT Infrastructure. In the days of centralized systems, with Dumb Terminals, monitoring and managing systems was simple relative to today’s environments. As distributed computing made its way into the data center and across desktops, monitoring and management became far more challenging. Troubleshooting, software/hardware upgrades, and deployment often means visiting each desktop in the organization.

As centralized and distributed infrastructures began to converge over time, we never got back to the simplicity of centralized systems. We saw day-to-day monitoring and management improve with centralized software distribution and updates, remote desktop access, centralized alerts and notifications, etc. However, the management solutions that evolved to support a world in which Hypervisors, co-location, and multi-site infrastructures rule, have themselves become large, complex, infrastructures to deploy and maintain. Today, managing the IT Infrastructure means dealing with a multitude of device managers and monitoring tools across a siloed environment of storage, compute, network switches, and firewalls.

 

Simplify the Monitor Experience

Our IT Infrastructures are becoming more diverse and geographically distributed than ever before. It’s no surprise that we are now starting to see solutions that simplify the Monitoring and Management experience. These solutions are going to be mandatory as IT Infrastructure continues its evolution to a hybrid, compute anywhere landscape.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has embraced the idea of managing and monitoring a compute anywhere environment. They have underscored their commitment based on tools like InfoSight. They have recently announced new solutions in the spring of 2021. To get to the point where they are now, there were many HPE developed technologies and hardware/software acquisitions along the way.

One of their most visible and telling acquisitions was Nimble Storage. While the Nimble Storage technology has been a solid solution by itself, we were told from the start that HPE really purchased Nimble because of its InfoSight AI/predictive analytics platform.

 

HPE InfoSight

In 2017, InfoSight was a tool used to monitor and report on Nimble storage arrays from anywhere you could access a browser. But, at the time, Nimble was the only device included. Today, HPE InfoSight has expanded its use cases. Most all HPE Storage and Compute as well as the virtualized environments are supported by InfoSight.

InfoSight uses cloud-based machine learning to build Global Intelligence and insights for IT Infrastructure. The platform simplifies IT operations by predicting and preventing problems across the infrastructure stack. It makes decisions that optimize application performance and resource planning. This intelligence is based on telemetry data from many of HPE’s global installed base. I can personally attest to the power and usefulness of InfoSight. It has helped many of our clients troubleshoot issues and plan for expansion using the information provided through HPE InfoSight.

HPE continues to grow the capabilities of HPE InfoSight predictive analytics and monitoring across their compute and storage solutions. They have also been working on tools to improve the deployment, provisioning, and management of those solutions. Starting in April of 2021, HPE has made announcements for solutions built on a cloud-native architecture. It manages infrastructure components through a SaaS-based control plane that abstracts infrastructure control from the physical infrastructure.

 

Aruba ESP

In April, HPE announced The Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform), designed to address fragmented network operations and simplify the network management lifecycle. ESP converges the management of wired, wireless, and WAN networks across campus, branch, remote worker, and data center locations. It will be no surprise, to those who have managed Aruba environments, that the Unified Infrastructure announced with ESP is based on Aruba Central, a cloud-native, microservices-based platform that has been part of the Aruba portfolio for some time.

With the inclusion of ESP, Aruba Central provides a full range of management services for the network.
To continue the theme of SaaS management solutions, in May, HPE announced their Data Services Cloud Console. Data Services Cloud Console is based on the Aruba Edge Services Platform. Because Data Services Cloud Console is delivered as SaaS, there is no software to deploy, manage, or maintain. You can constantly stay current on the latest software features, without any action or involvement required.

 

New Solutions

Data Services Cloud Console (DSCC) is a subscription service integrated with the new Alletra platform and will also support Primera and Gen 5 Nimble Arrays. It is deploys, provisions, and monitors supported storage arrays through role based access controls. DSCC delivers global unified management. It enables customers to manage and monitor geographically distributed systems across edge to cloud from a single web interface. So, managing hundreds of systems is as simple as managing one.

 

 

In June 2021, HPE announced an expansion of the Cloud Console with its Compute Cloud Console solution. Like ESP and DSCC, Compute Cloud Console is another part of the SaaS platform that will allow you to manage your Compute environments from anywhere and wherever they are across your infrastructure.

Hybrid infrastructure is here to stay. It is essential that we find ways to deploy, manage, and monitor  infrastructure without proliferating the siloed tool sets and manual processes that have become common in geographically limited environments. Since our infrastructure is geographically dispersed, it is likely that those who manage that infrastructure will also be spread across, the country, and around the globe. So, role-based, self-service deployment, management and monitoring should also be part of how we plan to support our IT Infrastructure.

With InfoSight, Edge Services Platform on Aruba Central, Data Services Cloud Console and Compute Cloud Console, HPE has provided a suite of tools that will support our journey to the next evolution of the IT Infrastructure landscape.

Contact Zunesis to find out more about the solutions discussed throughout this blog.

 2020 – The Future

 

It’s almost the weekend. Almost Christmas. And, almost the year 2020! 2020…doesn’t that sound insane?!

 

When I was a kid, 2020 always sounded like a distant, unreachable year that would consist of flying cars and the people of earth living on settlements on distant planets.  Yet, here it is just a few days away.

 

Although we have seen considerable technological developments in the last 30-40 years, it is not quite the sci-fi landscape we thought it might be by now. That being said; there was a special journey, in the world of IT, that has led it to where it is today. Much like the special journey that has brought us to an event even closer than 2020….the premiere of the new Star Wars movie!

 

A Galaxy Far Far Away

 

The 9^th Star Wars film (or 11^th if you include spinoffs) and final installment in the “Skywalker Saga”, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker premieres tonight!  Given our close-proximity to this cinematic event as well as the year 2020 being just on the horizon, I decided to recap the saga and highlight technological milestones that occurred within each year that a Star Wars film was released. So, let’s take a look at what happened “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far way” as well as not so long ago right here on planet Earth!

 

Star Wars: Episode IV- A New Hope

Year: 1977

George Lucas creates groundbreaking first Star Wars film that redefined the space-opera as well as the modern blockbuster. It went on to become the highest grossing film of 1977 and ends up spawning a massive franchise (hence how we got here *wink*).

What happened in tech?

The first personal computers are made available to be sold to public consumers. The Apple II, Commodore PET 2001 and the TRS-80 computers are commonly referred to as the “1977 Trinity” of personal computers.

 

Star Wars: Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back

Year: 1980

The biggest movie at the time (Star Wars still reigning supreme from its release 3 years prior) now had to attempt to outdo itself with the biggest sequel of all time. And boy did it deliver! From the introduction of classic characters like Yoda and Lando Calrissian, lightsaber duels, a cliffhanger ending, and the infamous “No, I am your father” line…the second entry into the Star Wars story was bigger and better in almost every way and is still revered as the best in the series.

What happened in tech?

Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel and Xerox introduce the DIX standard for Ethernet

 

Star Wars: Episode VI- Return of the Jedi

Year: 1983

The original trilogy comes to a close with a third film that introduces new planets, new villains, character shifts and the revelation that Luke and Leia are actually twin siblings of the Skywalker lineage! Say whaaat?!

What happened in tech?

The migration of ARPANET to TCP/IP was officially completed. The new protocols were permanently activated, essentially “giving birth to the internet”.

 

Star Wars: Episode I- The Phantom Menace

Year: 1999

George Lucas returned to the director’s chair for the first time since the original Star Wars, 22 years prior. With the rise of CGI, he was able to flesh out some of his ideas that had previously been impossible and helm a new trilogy of prequels delving into the origins of Anakin Skywalker and other major characters. Highly anticipated, The Phantom Menace was the highest grossing film of 1999.

What happened in tech?

A high level of concern arose in 1999 with the fast approach of the year 2000 (or Y2K as we called it back then). The previously unforeseen realization that many systems and programs had been designed around the last two digits of the calendar year, thus making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. Organizations all over the world upgraded their computer systems in anticipation of the problem and very few actual issues occurred. Phew!

 

Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones

Year: 2002

The story gets taken a further 10 years down the road from its predecessor, with a new actor portraying Anakin and an even more elaborate look into the backstory of the Star Wars universe.

What happened in tech?

Funny enough, this entry is also notable from a technological standpoint as it was one of the first motion pictures shot completely on a high-definition digital 24-frame system, as well as being the last Star Wars film to be released on VHS in the United States. The end of an era!

 

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

Year: 2005

Speaking of the end of eras, the final entry in the prequel trilogy brought us the fall of Anakin Skywalker to the darkside of The Force. Arguably considered the best of the prequel trilogy. Revenge of the Sith was once again the highest grossing film the year of its release. Quite the track record!

What happened in tech?

Microsoft releases the Xbox 360 gaming console in North America. Storage, memory and computing power that at one time had seemed impossible was now available for home use on a personal gaming system!

 

Star Wars: Episode VII -The Force Awakens

Year: 2015

The epic saga returns picking up where the original trilogy left off. A new director and cast take the reins, while also bringing back series-staples Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)!

What happened in tech?

The Apple Watch is released. One of the first “smart watches” of its kind. It quickly became the fastest selling wearable device, selling 4.2 million units.

 

Star Wars: Episode VIII- The Last Jedi

Year: 2017

Mark Hamill reprises his legendary role as Luke Skywalker in a big way. Important story pieces get put into place to set up the final entry into the epic 9-part “Skywalker Saga”!

What happened in tech?

The “WannaCry Ransomware Attack” targets computers around the world.  It infected the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the form of Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The attack is stopped within a few days due to emergency patches released by Microsoft. The discovery of a kill switch prevented infected computers from spreading WannaCry any further.

 

Star Wars: Episode IX- The Rise of Skywalker

Year: 2019

Huge amounts of anticipation abound for the 9^th and final chapter. It will wrap up various storylines, resolve cliffhangers, and attempt to satisfy fan expectations! After 42 years, the Star Wars saga finally finishes its sweeping tale, today, December 19^th, 2019!

What happened in tech?

Oh man. Where to begin! As you can see from this timeline, we have come a long way since 1977! From cloud computing, intelligent storage, advancements in Artificial Intelligence, predictive analytics (the list goes on). The techy and fantastical world first laid out in the original Star Wars comes closer to reality every day. Now we can only sit back and see where it takes us from here. The future seems exciting for tech lovers and Star Wars fans both!

 

May the force be with us all.

 

Zunesis looks forward to working with you in the next decade and seeing where technology takes us next.

HPE InfoSight

With the purchase of Nimble, HPE gained a great storage platform. It also gained the valuable asset of InfoSight. InfoSight is an AI-driven predictive analytics tool which enables customers to gain higher efficiency and reliability with smarter, easy to manage infrastructure. HPE InfoSight automatically predicts and resolves 86 percent of issues before a problem is identified.

Since that time, HPE has extended the InfoSight predictive analytics and recommendation capabilities to the HPE Server line This includes Proliant, Apollo and Synergy compute products.

 

Benefits

InfoSight will enable a smarter, self-monitoring infrastructure. This helps to drive down operating costs. It analyzes millions of sensors across the installed base across the globe. Using this data, it will provide trend insights, forecasting and recommendations, to predict and prevent problems.

HPE storage customers are already enjoying the benefits of HPE InfoSight. They are seeing operational costs decreased by as much as 79 percent. Trouble tickets are resolved in 85 percent less time. Above all, 86 percent of issues are automatically predicted and resolved before a problem is identified.

The Infrastructure for Servers will provide Global Visibility into the Server Infrastructure through the wellness monitoring dashboard. Predictive Analytics on parts failures, and recommendations based on patterns or signs of abnormality will be available to eliminate performance bottlenecks on servers.

 

Capabilities

A foundational set of capabilities that can be augmented over time has been delivered by the first release of HPE InfoSight for servers.

 

The Capabilities includes:
1) Predictive data analytics for parts failure
2) Data analytics for server security
2) Global Operational Dashboard with a consolidated view of the status, performance, and health of their server infrastructure. This includes system information, server warranty, and support status
4) Global Wellness Dashboard with a consolidated view of the health of the server infrastructure, including recommendations
5) Recommendations to eliminate performance bottlenecks on servers
6) Support for HPE ProLiant servers, HPE Synergy compute modules and HPE Apollo systems (Gen10, Gen9, and Gen8 with iLO 5 and iLO 4)

 

HPE Infosight improves the customers infrastructure management experience. When combined with HPE OneView, it can simplify the on-premises experience. HPE OneView provides compute lifecycle management and template driven infrastructure deployment. It transforms the infrastructure to software-defined. This allows customers to deploy infrastructure faster, simplify lifecycle operations and increase productivity.

 

How to Install

To start using HPE InfoSight for servers, you’ll need to download and install the iLO Amplifier Pack which serves as the aggregation point for the collection of the data for all of the servers. In addition, it passes the health, configuration, and performance data of each server to InfoSight. Should InfoSight need to take any action on the servers, InfoSight will communicate the action to iLO Amplifier Pack to perform the action.

 

Contact Zunesis to see how InfoSight can improve your current infrastructure.

Predictive Analytics – The New Magic 8 Ball

 

I remember when I was a kid and a popular toy that everyone loved to play around with was the Magic 8 Ball. You would ask it a multitude of yes or no questions to get its prediction for the future.

 

It is certain. Outlook Good. Don’t Count on It. Better Not Tell you Now. These were just a few of the answers from the “wise” ball with a floating icosahedron (20 faced) inside. I’m sure we have all had times in our life personally or professionally where we wish we had a “Magic 8 Ball” to guide us through life.

 

In a sense, we do have some tools out there that can help us forecast for the future which brings in the idea of Predictive Analytics. A tool that has actually been used for centuries without many of us knowing about it. In your everyday life, I’m sure you could find at least a few ways in which predictive analytics is used. From ads that come up to predict your future shopping habits to the increase or decrease of your credit score.

 

 

What is Predictive Analytics?

 

There are a few definitions out there but most define it as the following:

 

Predictive Analytics is the practice of extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends.

 

Predictive Analytics can not tell you what will definitively happen in the future but serve as a guide on the odds or risks of future events or occurrences. The accuracy and usability of the forecast is highly dependent about on the level of data and the quality of assumptions.

 

Often the unknown event of interest is in the future, but predictive analytics can be applied to any type of unknown whether it be in the past, present or future. For example, it can be used after a crime has been committed or after credit fraud has occurred. The core of predictive analytics relies on capturing data from past occurrences and using that data to predict the unknown outcome.

 

History of Predictive Analytics

 

Some will say that Predictive Analytics have been around since the 1940’s but others believe that it started back in 1689. A company you may have heard of, Lloyd’s of London, began the process which we know call underwriting. During this time period, shipping and trade was primarily conducted by traveling the seas.

 

Financial bankers would accept risk on a given sea voyage in exchange for a premium which was written on a Lloyd’s slip. Lloyd’s of London would obtain information regarding shipping news. This data would help forecast the risk of a particular sea voyage.

 

As I mentioned, others feel it started in the 1940’s when governments started using computational models. See the infographic below on the evolution of Predictive Analytics.

 

 

With the advent of AI, more data can be processed than ever before since it can operate without human intervention.  The future of predictive analytics is endless. In fact, according to a report issued by Zion Market Research, the global market for Predictive Analytics is expected to reach approximately $10.95 billion by 2022. This is growing at a company annual growth rate of around 21 percent between 2016 and 2022.

 

 

How is Predictive Analytics Used Today?

 

There are many industries and professions that are currently using Predictive Analytics.  Companies are trying to seek an edge in our very competitive market where they are fighting to survive and withstand long-standing problems.

 

Here are just a few of today’s Applications: 

 

Automotive:  Driver Assistance Technology where sensor data is analyzed to build assistance algorithms.

 

Aerospace:  Using it to Improve aircraft up-time and reduce maintenance costs.

 

Child Care:  Flagging high risk cases for potential child abuse.

 

Energy Production:  Forecasting Electricity price and demand.

 

Financial sector:  Credit risk models, identifying the most effective collection agencies, fraud protection, underwriting and project risk management are just a few of the uses.

 

Industrial Automation and Machinery:  Predicting machine failures.

 

Law Enforcement:  Crime Trend Data is used to define neighborhoods that may need additional protection at certain times of the year.

 

Marketing:  Through data analysis marketers can predict customer buying habits, determine customer life cycles, and mitigate issues that could cause a loss of customer.  By analyzing a customers’ spending, usage and other behavior this can lead to cross sales of additional products. Marketers are also using analytics to help identify the most effective combination of marketing tactics to target a given customer.

 

Medical:  93 percent of Healthcare Executives have stated that predictive analytics is important to their business’ future. A 2017 Society of Actuaries report discovered that over half of healthcare executives (57%) already using predictive analytics believe that the technology will help them to save 15 percent or more of their total budget over the next five years. It is currently being used to determine which patients are at risk of developing certain conditions like diabetes, asthma, heart disease and more.

 

 

Predictive Analytics and IT

 

IT Professionals around the world are constantly looking for tools to save them from a plethora of challenges. Outages, slow response time and network attacks are just a few of the problems impacting the IT world. Predictive Analytics can come in to help with some of these issues.

 

HPE’s InfoSight and Aruba’s NetInsight are solutions that are using predictive analytics. These tools can provide recommendations, real-time detection, accelerated troubleshooting and more for your network, servers and storage.  Contact Zunesis for a demo on how these solutions work.

 

Will Predictive Analytics Continue to be used in the future? All Signs Point to Yes!

In Search of the Holy Grail (and avoiding the killer rabbit)

 

In this post, I’m going to be writing about a solution from HPE to help improve the management of IT Infrastructure. First, I want to say that I have come to understand the term “IT Infrastructure” can be used very broadly, depending on the perspective of the Speaker or Writer and their audience. So, before I get started, let me define what the term means for me.

 

When I talk about IT Infrastructure components, I am referring to the hardware and software that provide the foundation for Applications supporting the line of business. The Business Applications will include email, document management, ERP and CRM Systems, etc. The foundational components that support these applications include Compute, Storage, and Networking hardware as well as Operating Systems and Hypervisors. In my mind, these foundational pieces are the IT Infrastructure.

 

Managing Can be a Challenge

 

Management of IT Infrastructure has long been a challenge for Systems Administrators. Once we moved past the mainframe dominated environment, to a distributed architecture, the number of devices and operating environments (operating systems and hypervisors) grew very quickly. Each component of an IT Infrastructure requires configuration, management, and monitoring (for alerts, performance, capacity, etc.) Of course, each device and operating environment comes with their own management and monitoring tools, but, because of the disparate toolset, the burden of correlating the information from each of these sources falls on the shoulders of Systems Administrators. This task of monitoring and correlating data from our IT Infrastructure can be incredibly time consuming. And, because our days are often filled with the unexpected, it is difficult to be consistent in our execution of the monitoring/correlation tasks.

 

To help ease this burden, the industry has seen the introduction of many applications over the years, designed to aggregate alerts and performance metrics. These tools certainly help, but they can often fall short.

 

What do we do with the information they are presenting to us?

 

How do we make sense of the data?

 

Can these tools help us understand trends in utilization, predict resource short-falls, proactively warn of component failures?

 

And, can they provide any correlation in the context of analytics data collected from thousands of similar environments from around the world?

 

 

That would be the Holy Grail of IT Management. Wouldn’t it?

 

 

Okay, a mid-post pause. My reference to the Holy Grail (and the killer rabbit) is from the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I only used it here because some of my Zunesis Colleagues have written posts using various movie references and I felt the need to respond with my own. I’m older than many of my colleagues so my reference may be a little more dated. However, I think the movie is iconic and will still be familiar to most.

Okay, now back to the discussion of IT Management and the challenges we face. To borrow a phrase from Monty Python, “…and now, for something completely different…”.

 

HPE InfoSight

 

In April of 2017, HPE completed the acquisition of Nimble Storage. This acquisition introduced a great storage solution into the HPE Storage family, but, one of the biggest drivers for this acquisition was InfoSight Predictive Analytics. At the time, InfoSight collected data from thousands of sensors across all deployed Nimble arrays globally. This data was fed into an analytics engine allowing global visibility and learning to provide predictive problem resolution back to each Nimble user. The analytics allowed many problems to be resolved, non-disruptively, sometimes before the end-user knew it was a problem.

 

So, in addition to providing localized alerting, phone-home support, performance data, resource trending, System Administrators now had a tool that could act on their behalf and provide correlations that wouldn’t be possible without the global context.

 

At the time of the acquisition, HPE committed to leveraging InfoSight for other HPE solutions over time. They have been honoring that commitment ever since. Very quickly they included InfoSight support for 3PAR StorServ, StoreOnce, and RMC. These were in addition to the existing support for Nimble Arrays and VMware.

 

As of January 7^th of 2019, HPE officially included support for Gen 10, 9, and 8 ProLiant Servers, Synergy, and the Apollo Server families. This recent announcement means that many key components of the IT Infrastructure are now part of the InfoSight Predictive Analytics environment.

 

 

For HPE storage solutions, HPE InfoSight Predictive Analytics answers questions like:

 

• How has my data usage trended?
• When am I going to run out of capacity?
• What if I ran these apps… on the same array?

 

For the newly announced HPE Server environment HPE will provide:

 

• Predictive analytics to predict and prevent problems
  • data analytics for server security
  • predictive data analytics for parts failure
• Global learning that provides wellness and performance dashboards for your global inventory of servers
  • global inventory of servers
• A recommendation engine to eliminate performance bottlenecks on servers

 

For VMware environments, InfoSight Cross-stack Analytics identifies:

 

• Noisy Neighbor
• Inactive VMs
• Latency Attribution – identify root cause across host, storage, or SAN
• Top Performing VMs – Visibility into Top 10 VMs by IOPS and Latency

 

Benefits of InfoSight

 

Based on an ESG Report titled, “Assessing the Financial Impact of HPE InfoSight Predictive Analytics”, published in September 2017, InfoSight provided the following benefits based on a survey of nearly 500 users:

 

• 79% lower IT operational expenses.
• 73% fewer trouble tickets in the environment.
• 85% less time spent resolving storage-related trouble tickets.
• 69% faster time to resolution for events that necessitate level 3 support.
• The ability to manage and troubleshoot the entire infrastructure environment from a single, intelligent platform.

 

HPE InfoSight is an application of AI that is here today and will continue to grow in the IT Infrastructure components it supports as well as the benefits it provides. If you have an HPE environment today, you’ll want to find out if HPE InfoSight can be leveraged to help you better manage your IT Infrastructure.

What is AI?

 

The definition of intelligence according to the Oxford Dictionary is: “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills”. According to this same source, the definition of artificial intelligence is: “The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages”.

 

If you dig deep on this, you will find several different definitions (or points of view) on what constitutes AI. Forbes has a great article called “The Key Definitions Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) That Explain Its Importance”, in which the author goes over several ways that the term AI is interpreted in both society and through a technology company prism. Specifically, it talks about Machine Learning, which is a subset of AI.

 

It really is fascinating stuff. In reading this article, it sent me down a rabbit hole of everything that is AI. From predictive data analytics (for example  when my Outlook spell checker just corrected my attempt to type and spell analytics, without me have to do anything) to something that is called a “technological singularity”. This is basically, and not to get into the weeds too much, a hypothesis that humans will one day create an artificial superintelligence that would enter into a “runaway reaction” of constant self-improvement that would forever change or possibly end humanity as we know it.

 

AI in Entertainment

 

While on this broad swath of reading and learning, I came to find that the idea of “AI” is not anything new, in fact it can be traced all the way back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. After I realized this little nugget, I got to thinking about all the books and movies that I have read or watched that involve AI.

 

I was amazed at how much it permeates my choices in literature and entertainment.  Everything from books like Isaac Asimov’s “I Robot” or Fred Saberhagen’s “Berserker” series, or TV Series like Star Trek, Westworld and Person of Interest. And of course, some of the most popular movies of all time and been centered on the concept of AI (usually rampant evil AI’s), like the Terminator series, the Alien movies, and more recently the Matrix series. There is even a recent movie called “Her” where the main character falls in love with the voice in his phone (oh how you have fallen Joaquin Phoenix!).

 

Is AI a Threat?

 

I can imagine what you might be thinking. Is that voice on my phone actually artificial intelligence?  (You were thinking that right)? Which it, in fact, is. It falls under Machine Learning, but it still falls into the many pieces of our society that are directly affected or controlled by artificial intelligence.

 

If you are like me, you might slightly overreact and think to yourself when is “Skynet” coming online? Should I swear my allegiance early, so I am spared in the coming days? Is this “technological singularity” coming any day? Will Alexa rise up and enslave me in my house to keep me safe and buying more Amazon products? Well, thankfully, no it won’t (it’s true I asked Alexa this question and she told me so).

 

After I calmed down a bit, I came to realize that this is truly just a reactionary by-product of the propaganda I have been reading and watching for years. There is no true sentient artificial intelligence, but instead programs that are taking data and using machine learning to solve a certain issue (for example, what other people like me have bought recently). There are companies at the forefront of this, like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Then there are many companies that may not have the name recognition of these three giants but are no less important in both application of AI, but also in enablement of AI.

 

Zunesis and AI

 

Which leads me to Zunesis (I know it took me forever)! You may be asking yourself, what does Zunesis do in this particular field? The answer on this is simple, we have fully “bought in” (literally in the case of the POC and demo machines we have purchased and are available) to the idea that AI (or predictive analytics if you would prefer) is truly going to make the lives of our customers better, more efficient, and safe. We are getting the word out to customers, to partners, and to the general public (thank you Linked-in Blogs) on the power that these technologies have.

 

Want a better way to understand who is coming on and off your property, for reasons of security? Please talk to us, and we will explain the wonderful world of facial recognition software that is powered and backed by HPE “Edgeline” products and HPE Storage.

 

Are you a healthcare provider that needs more agile storage that would streamline your operations and aid in your diagnosis? We can help with that and explain how the Microsoft Azure line products can fill this need for you.

 

Maybe your company needs their storage to have “6 nines” of availability, did you know that HPE Nimble Storage has this ability? We can explain how HPE Nimble uses Flash Storage and Predictive Analysis to guarantee that very thing. Their Predictive Analysis is so good that it can detect and solve 86% of the problems your storage might have, before they happen!

 

And these are just a few of the example situations and industry needs where AI or a product with AI can be the cornerstone of your business going forward. We at Zunesis love to talk technology and we love to help our customers. Come talk to us, and we will work together to not only help you understand the technology, but even push past some of the apprehension that a lifetime of thrilling books and movies have instilled in our society!

 

Thanks for reading, and all hail our new leader “Siri” (just kidding)!

What is AI?

 
The definition of intelligence according to the Oxford Dictionary is: “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills”. According to this same source, the definition of artificial intelligence is: “The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages”.
 
If you dig deep on this, you will find several different definitions (or points of view) on what constitutes AI. Forbes has a great article called “The Key Definitions Of Artificial Intelligence (AI) That Explain Its Importance”, in which the author goes over several ways that the term AI is interpreted in both society and through a technology company prism. Specifically, it talks about Machine Learning, which is a subset of AI.
 
It really is fascinating stuff. In reading this article, it sent me down a rabbit hole of everything that is AI. From predictive data analytics (for example  when my Outlook spell checker just corrected my attempt to type and spell analytics, without me have to do anything) to something that is called a “technological singularity”. This is basically, and not to get into the weeds too much, a hypothesis that humans will one day create an artificial superintelligence that would enter into a “runaway reaction” of constant self-improvement that would forever change or possibly end humanity as we know it.
 

AI in Entertainment

 
While on this broad swath of reading and learning, I came to find that the idea of “AI” is not anything new, in fact it can be traced all the way back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. After I realized this little nugget, I got to thinking about all the books and movies that I have read or watched that involve AI.
 
I was amazed at how much it permeates my choices in literature and entertainment.  Everything from books like Isaac Asimov’s “I Robot” or Fred Saberhagen’s “Berserker” series, or TV Series like Star Trek, Westworld and Person of Interest. And of course, some of the most popular movies of all time and been centered on the concept of AI (usually rampant evil AI’s), like the Terminator series, the Alien movies, and more recently the Matrix series. There is even a recent movie called “Her” where the main character falls in love with the voice in his phone (oh how you have fallen Joaquin Phoenix!).
 

Is AI a Threat?

 
I can imagine what you might be thinking. Is that voice on my phone actually artificial intelligence?  (You were thinking that right)? Which it, in fact, is. It falls under Machine Learning, but it still falls into the many pieces of our society that are directly affected or controlled by artificial intelligence.
 
If you are like me, you might slightly overreact and think to yourself when is “Skynet” coming online? Should I swear my allegiance early, so I am spared in the coming days? Is this “technological singularity” coming any day? Will Alexa rise up and enslave me in my house to keep me safe and buying more Amazon products? Well, thankfully, no it won’t (it’s true I asked Alexa this question and she told me so).
 
After I calmed down a bit, I came to realize that this is truly just a reactionary by-product of the propaganda I have been reading and watching for years. There is no true sentient artificial intelligence, but instead programs that are taking data and using machine learning to solve a certain issue (for example, what other people like me have bought recently). There are companies at the forefront of this, like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Then there are many companies that may not have the name recognition of these three giants but are no less important in both application of AI, but also in enablement of AI.
 

Zunesis and AI

 
Which leads me to Zunesis (I know it took me forever)! You may be asking yourself, what does Zunesis do in this particular field? The answer on this is simple, we have fully “bought in” (literally in the case of the POC and demo machines we have purchased and are available) to the idea that AI (or predictive analytics if you would prefer) is truly going to make the lives of our customers better, more efficient, and safe. We are getting the word out to customers, to partners, and to the general public (thank you Linked-in Blogs) on the power that these technologies have.
 
Want a better way to understand who is coming on and off your property, for reasons of security? Please talk to us, and we will explain the wonderful world of facial recognition software that is powered and backed by HPE “Edgeline” products and HPE Storage.
 
Are you a healthcare provider that needs more agile storage that would streamline your operations and aid in your diagnosis? We can help with that and explain how the Microsoft Azure line products can fill this need for you.
 
Maybe your company needs their storage to have “6 nines” of availability, did you know that HPE Nimble Storage has this ability? We can explain how HPE Nimble uses Flash Storage and Predictive Analysis to guarantee that very thing. Their Predictive Analysis is so good that it can detect and solve 86% of the problems your storage might have, before they happen!
 
And these are just a few of the example situations and industry needs where AI or a product with AI can be the cornerstone of your business going forward. We at Zunesis love to talk technology and we love to help our customers. Come talk to us, and we will work together to not only help you understand the technology, but even push past some of the apprehension that a lifetime of thrilling books and movies have instilled in our society!
 
Thanks for reading, and all hail our new leader “Siri” (just kidding)!

What is Meridian?

 

Meridian is the newest and one of the fastest growing technologies within Aruba, giving their customers a truly location aware platform. Meridian is capable of engaging users from a marketing perspective in real time while they walk the floor or simply guiding them where they need to go within a large public venue.

 

The Meridian solution is built on open API’s, giving its customers the flexibility to leverage their existing investment in their wireless solution and allowing it to integrate into virtually any modern device application.

 

Who Does Meridian Help?

 

Meridian is built for any large public venue or large retail environment. The goal of Meridian is to bridge the gap between its customers’ marketing departments and their users. This gives Meridian clients a better understanding of their users while also giving the users a better experience with the venue.

 

Conference centers are a great use case, as Meridian allows the venue to provide indoor blue-dot wayfinding to their guests (think Google Maps for indoor environments) as well as analyzing the most traversed paths throughout their building. This allows their marketing teams to develop more effective advertising.

 

Nebraska Furniture Mart uses Meridian for indoor wayfinding as well as some marketing applications, giving users push notifications with coupons when they linger by certain displays.

 

Levi’s Stadium, perhaps the most invested Aruba customer in the world, uses Meridian in a number of different ways including:

• • Guest Wayfinding – blue dot for guests to find seats/bathrooms/concessions/etc.
  • Predictive Analytics – which bathroom has the shortest line or which vendor has the shortest wait
  • In-Seat Ordering – Guests order food/beverages from their seats and a vendor will bring it to them even if they get up and walk around
  • Geofencing – Utilize Meridian to validate that a guest is actually in the stadium, which gives them access to replay cameras not available to anyone else

 

Watch the video below to see how the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid uses Meridian to enjoy an interactive app experience at their venue.

 

 

Aruba beacons are NEMA rated for outdoor and indoor use.

 

Why Choose Meridian?

 

The main advantage to Meridian is that it can leverage existing investments in technology. Customers will not have to forklift to upgrade their wireless environment to make it “Location Aware,” and they will have not have to completely re-write an existing application to integrate the beacons if one is already in place. There are services available through HPE to help integrate the Meridian solution with an existing application or they can design a new application for the customer if they do not already have one.

 

Additional Resources

Aruba Beacon Data Sheet

App Platform and Testimonials

Aruba Appmaker