Learn how the emerging field of artificial intelligence for IT operations will help stakeholders cope with evolving demands.
In previous blogs, I have covered the complexity of bringing together operational technology (OT) with information technology (IT). To ensure availability, flexibility, security, and lower total cost of ownership, systems need to offer high responsiveness to users, manage interactive ecosystems, and orchestrate complex infrastructure dynamically. The emerging field of artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) will help stakeholders cope with these evolving demands and manage competing priorities while reducing costs. While robust artificial intelligence (AI) is still nascent, the underlying challenge of managing future OT/IT infrastructure will force humans to rely on intelligent software agents.
Sources of insight
With every element of the technology value-stack generating data about its operation and its environment, systems have an abundance of information that can be harnessed for better operations. Garnering every detail and compiling the data into a format for processing by AI agents is crucial. Event logs, application logs, load metrics, platform operational logs, maintenance logs, etc. are all invaluable in providing a comprehensive view of the current and past states of the technology ecosystem. The first step is taking proactive action to track every resource and generate exception alerts on deviations from expected behavior in response times, availability, and events.
Discerning the signal from the noise
Having data about historical operations is not enough; it needs to be harnessed for insight. The process of deriving insights requires sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms that suppress normal event noise and glean correlations between data and real-world actions. Matching alerts and parameter changes to real events like load spikes and security threats enables AI agents to anticipate possible resolution paths and corrective actions.
Smart sensing is critical for AI to take hold in the IT/OT world. More data, as we all know, doesn’t necessarily translate to increased intelligence. More importantly, differentiating between mundane system behaviors (which are candidates for automation) and abnormal behaviors (which require human intervention) is key to effectively managing future OT/IT infrastructure.
AI actions
Any AI system is constituted by an agent and its environment. An agent is any program that perceives its environment using sensors and acts upon its environment using actuators. These sensors and actuators can be software, hardware, or a combination. AI agents are task-oriented and it is up to stakeholders to unleash them with the right goals. A simple agent implements actions using basic if-then-else logic, while a highly capable utility agent will act on multiple facets to achieve an objective to the maximum extent. For example, a stakeholder can instruct an agent to dynamically allocate more resources when load spikes are experienced using a simple agent.
Alternately, a utility agent can be deployed to understand the sources of the load spike, detect whether the load spike is spurious or genuine; and take corrective action. As machine learning gains more traction, superior agents that can learn from past actions and posit new improvements are in the making. These agents can optimize for a wide variety of inputs and outcomes and truly change the paradigm for infrastructure management.
It is only a matter of time before progressive organizations use AI-based methodologies to architect, design, and resource their infrastructure and business objectives. Having an eye on the above three goals will enable teams to execute on customer demands effectively and deliver competitively differentiating outcomes.
Arrow has been working with several partners to foster a world of OT automation and AI. Recognizing that the future will be a cooperation between AI-enabled systems and human judgment, Arrow is investing resources and expertise into helping our customers with services and offerings that will simplify IT operations and further bridge the OT-IT gap.
