This year we will see many businesses looking to improve visibility and boost levels of control across their IT infrastructures. This is in response to the ever-growing number of systems and IoT devices that they need to keep on top of. In fact, some estimates predict that there will be more the 207 billion devices connected to the IoT by the end of 2024.
Change and evolution is necessary in the business landscape. However, it’s impossible to keep up with every new product launch in today’s age of technological innovation. That’s why we need to give people the ability to extend the capabilities of existing products.
It’s important to avoid getting swept up in the ‘new trend’ tide, forgetting the fundamentals. True, cloud first strategies make sense and have clear appeal. But, as the landscape continues to grow, the importance of physical IT infrastructure cannot be overstated. We connect to the cloud via a wire and a box, so cloud migration makes physical infrastructure even more important than it used to be. Without it you can do nothing. It’s not enough to look at IT systems and their components in isolation. You need to keep an eye on the physical aspects of your IT environment too.
Never forget your infrastructure layer – everything stems from that.
Cyber threats: an ever-expanding attack surface needs a Zero-Trust approach
Of course, just as IoT devices expand the network drastically, they also expand the potential attack surface. With everything being connected to a network, businesses really have no choice but to secure their systems.
Next year we’re likely to see cyber-attacks grow in scale and sophistication. Businesses will need to be able to respond quickly and effectively in order to survive.
In an effort to stop bad actors before they can become a problem, many are adopting a zero-trust approach. However, if you’re going to have a zero-trust strategy in place, you need to ensure the products you decide to deploy are working and are performing. This is even more important, given that companies will continue to expand their capabilities next year in order to keep up with the competition and retain talent.
Of course, it’s no longer enough for IT managers to simply deploy software and put their faith in it. They need to know that the product they are deploying is doing what it says on the tin. Landscapes are increasingly complex – with many different systems and devices to keep control of – and leaders need an ‘umbrella overview’ across their legacy infrastructure, cloud systems and OT environment.
It is only then that businesses can get one step ahead of cyber-criminals. Knowing is better than believing and greater visibility will be the key to peace of mind in an increasingly unpredictable environment.
ESG: getting ahead of reporting
Businesses are increasingly subject to ESG audits and reports, so must be able to answer the question: what is the environmental cost of every business process? Against the ever-growing IoT landscape, this, inevitably becomes even more challenging. Business leaders will want to know how to look more forensically at their systems to strike a balance between performance and functional power. Monitoring technologies can be a huge help in answering these questions. It can help organisations to understand exactly what resources are being consumed, what benefits are being provided as well as areas for possible reduction.
Through system snapshots and reform points, IT managers can understand the carbon footprint behind every process and device – regardless of where it is logging on from – and whether appropriate categories for data backup are in place. With monitoring, you can truly understand those categories and then ensure you are using the correct metrics for measurement in every instance.
Observability: the next step in monitoring
Most IT managers already have predictive monitoring software in place. Next year, many
businesses will look to expand this enterprise capability with ‘observability’. Observability can add to those existing predictive monitoring capabilities by allowing managers to understand the connections between their systems in more depth. Monitoring enables us to look at potential areas where common issues could occur – but observability looks at the unknowns.
IT managers who are able to look at extending existing system capabilities and adopt new approaches, even as they ‘firefight’ everyday issues, will stay one step ahead of the competition. An IT focused business is an innovative business and one that can adapt to changing customer needs.
Martin Hodgson, Director Northern Europe at Paessler AG.