In the current infrastructure and cloud environment, these answers aren’t always available from individual IT and infrastructure vendors.
There are a variety of technology challenges to integrating all of the IT assets in any digital transformation or Smart World project.
The diagram below describes how this happens. Think of the IAP as the higher-level brain that can abstract and manage connectivity and functions across a wide variety of technology domains, serving as the control point for integration and automation initiatives.
How to use APIs and other tools to abstract configuration and orchestration details and enable automation via a higher-level system can manage and automate the coordination of the technology pieces.How to Integrate the array of technologies and vendors involved in such way that the assembling process is less painful and costly.To solve for automation, two problems need to be addressed: The IAP will provide services such as orchestration and coordination of application programming interfaces (APIs) so that many different parts of the infrastructure – public cloud, IoT sensors, edge compute, and the communications networks – can coordinate the distribution and processing of real-time data. These are the so-called technology domains of cloud, enterprise IT, and public service provider communications networks. Smart World and digital transformation projects involve a broad set of infrastructure technologies from different vendors and different functional domains for each use case to be delivered. But the questions is, What fundamental changes to the network and communications architecture are needed to implement these applications at the edge? IAP technology is one of the answers. The automation of the IT systems will only be possible with infrastructure that can support this real-time gathering and processing of data. Futuriom recently profiled one aspect of this in our case study on the Las Vegas Smart City. High-bandwidth wireless connectivity (5G), connected cars, artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, IoT sensors, and augmented reality are all driving a Smart World by gathering data and applying intelligence and automation to everything we do. Data Drives Connectivityĭata is the lifeblood of automation and digital transformation because it is used to drive analytics to automate processes, whether that’s optimizing traffic systems or improving efficiency at a factory. A new platform is needed to tie together the many moving parts of the infrastructure - the IAP.
In order to deliver digital transformation, the data must be able to move freely among platforms in a secure way. For example, the domain could be a public cloud platform, an IoT device, or communications infrastructure on a public network. These resources might include data, applications, compute infrastructure, and network connectivity that reside in different technology domains. Check out the eBook we wrote for them on IAP - What is Slowing the Smart World Transition?)Īs next-generation enterprises and consumer applications transform business and society, they require many resources. What does that mean for the future of technology? It means there is growing demand for technology that can cross domains to securely connect a variety of devices and platforms - an emerging area known as an Integrated Automation Platform (IAP). Cloud platforms, networking, and devices plugged into the Internet of Things (IoT) are multiplying by the day.