The cornerstone of data management is to create accurate and consistent content standards. They should contain very precise methodologies around use cases and contextual meaning (which you can capture in metadata), so as they move throughout the enterprise from one process or person to another, you can be assured of information fidelity and accuracy.

What is DataOps?

DataOps begin with a thorough analysis and audit of your information and storage systems — from dusty old paper records to your cloud computing accounts — creating a conversion program and installing and maintaining the software that’ll be used to house it all. Then it’s time to go live, extracting and verifying data from multiple hard and soft copy sources, moving it where it needs to be, and performing regular maintenance to ensure ongoing data integrity.

Also read: The State of AIOps: What to Look Forward to in 2021

The Role of the DataOps Specialist

The dataOps specialist is the guru who puts everything in the right format and on the right platform so it can be used, shared, and verified seamlessly. Often converting older records from analog to digital, they design and deploy storage platforms, ensure ease of use and access, and train staff on storage, saving, retrieval, and use.

DataOps specialists design systems that track and report on where every data point is and what it’s doing. Users then need only query a typical UI dashboard; where sales of a certain component are strongest, how many customer records are moribund because they don’t match up with other directory sources, how many hours staff are spending deleting spam.

Answers to those and countless other questions that will make your company more efficient are all to be found in your data, but until a dataOps specialist builds a pipeline to transfer or share it around, you’ll spend way too long finding it – or worse, maybe never know.

Data Management and DataOps Specialists

Harnessing your data and exploiting it to its full potential will give you a competitive advantage. 

Good data management provides:

• The tools to make better decisions 
• The ability to roll out new well-tested applications and services
• The opportunity to create better customer interactions and experiences. 
• Alignment between your staff and the data systems they use with minimal disruption
• Automation of data storage software

There’s an inherent tension between the need to secure data to meet regulatory requirements and use that data to fully explore new revenue opportunities. A knowledgeable dataOps specialist can connect the two, making data management a set-and-forget proposition. He or she will help overcome system complexities and the high cost of getting the best out of your data.

Also read: Networking 101: What is Data Governance?

Building Revenue with DataOps

DataOps specialists are no longer a luxury, they are a necessity. While another C-suite manager costing an average of $95K a year will take some selling to your board, the amount of potential revenue a dataOps specialist will potentially contribute is now beyond speculation.

The ongoing costs around systems design and implementation for dataOps are hard to pin down because they can often grow out of other infrastructures you already own or control. The potential to save and make money through greater efficiency and insight is similarly intangible, but it’s an important part of investing in business digital transformation. 

DataOps specialists build workflows through your organization so every one of those signals — from a customer browsing your website to a cog in an autonomous vehicle needing to be changed — is accounted for and put to work.  Whether you’re working with legacy systems that aren’t being folded into your data workflow fast enough or you’re recruiting the latest intelligence machine learning algorithms can extract, a dataOps specialist can bring all of those streams together.  

Read next: Data Center Automation Will Enable the Next Phase of Digital Transformation

The post Networking 101: What is a DataOps Specialist? appeared first on Enterprise Networking Planet.

Put another way, you handle data with the software tools, guidelines, and networks in the enterprise. Data governance refers to the overarching framework that incorporates these (and more) measures according to the law. It involves the need to formalize terms and formats that describe your data to ensure fidelity over time and workflows based on strict rules of use and access.

Instituting data governance can solve problems around data discovery such as:

• Repurposing and making use of unstructured data
• Data cleansing, including removing unused tables in database files
• Integration technologies to fold into other systems.

Learn more: Data Governance Best Practices

Data Governance Imperatives

We all use data from different sources in different ways that’s saved in different formats for different software applications. Inconsistencies arise, and without an overview of your data management they might never be resolved. In addition to embarrassment, poor data management can cost you money, complicating data integration programs and compromising business development reporting and opportunities. Without data governance, such issues might even go undetected for years.

There’s also a legal imperative. Not having good quality data can put you out of step with compliance regulation, making it harder to meet service-level agreements (SLAs) and may even lead to prosecution.

The most sweeping data governance law thus far is the European Union’s 2016 General Data Protection Regulation, which gives EU citizens unprecedented access and control over their data.

One of the GDPR’s central fulcrums was seen as the right to be forgotten, where everyone has the right to erasure of personal data under a raft of conditions and circumstances. That imposes a monetary cost on the enterprise in the form of a program to repurpose data for customer access and removal, and steep fines for non-compliance.

Also read: How to Comply with GDPR

Benefits of Data Governance

Data governance is intended to break down barriers. Different stores of data can all combine to make business and workflows within the enterprise and between companies smoother, more efficient, and more secure.

As a company grows, disparate systems handle and process data by different departments, and at a certain level of staff numbers or revenue it can become unwieldy. Transactions are processed and business is conducted in something of a vacuum, with no centralized management environment.

The point of data governance is to bring all those systems and all that information into line, so everyone across the enterprise can engage with any other department or system; and, often with stakeholders outside as well. Management gets a clearer, at-a-glance picture of the health of the entire digital asset base and can be assured they comply with regulation that affects their sector or geographic region.

Other benefits of data governance will follow:

• It will cost less to manage and use data.
• The quality of your data will make it a more valuable asset in itself. For example, if you have data-sharing agreements with other businesses or business units.
• It will be easier to investigate for analysis, be it revenue-generating or otherwise.

Data governance will also give you and your enterprise better decision-making power about the directions of your organization. Following the data tells the story of what’s going on with supply and income unimpeded.

Also read: Tools to Better Manage GDPR

Getting Started with Data Governance

Different business units in the enterprise will have different views on how their information is stored, used, and accessed, so implementing data governance is like launching a rocket — most of the hard work will come as soon as you pull the trigger, but it will get easier as you pick up speed.

The data governance plan ultimately has to come from the top, but it mustn’t be simply edicts on how things will be done. Instead, it should be based on engaging with and listening to department heads about their needs and goals. They’re the ones that use the information, after all, so they’ll know the best methods to wrangle it. The job of the data governance committee or officer is to massage those needs to comply with the policies and legislation data governance sets out.

Selling data governance to company leadership can be a challenge, including corporate boards who might not be clear on its business value. Data governance isn’t simply a reactive process because of laws and rules. It should be proactive, to take advantage of newer and expanded revenue streams.

Examples of how your enterprise missed the boat on important opportunities can also be helpful; such information highlights how unstructured, insecure, siloed, and bad quality data might negatively impact your business.

It’s a new world where networks are so pervasive that data travels everywhere and fulfil endless purposes. With so much of it being processed even without human input, we need a clear way forward to manage and disseminate data. Data governance is the answer.

Read next: Simplifying Data Management with Hybrid Networks

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Zero Day Threats in the Brand Era

Software, services, and platforms released to developers or consumers get one chance to make a first impression. Not only can a zero day threat quickly propagate throughout your user base thanks to a compromised product — turning devices into DDoS relays, stealing personal information, and more — the damage to your reputation can be catastrophic.

Additionally, it will be a vulnerability you didn’t even know about, leaving you to scramble to find it and issue a patch, by which time jittery potential customers might be long gone.

One of the properties of a zero day threat is what’s called the vulnerability window, the period of time between the first exploitation of a flaw and the release of a patch. Most high profile zero day attacks are designed to do the most damage in days or even hours, but plenty more can chug along undetected for extended periods (even years), coming to life to wreak their havoc and falling idle again.

Also read: Steps to Building a Zero Trust Network

Combating Zero Day Threats

As with any cyberthreat, the best way to protect the network is to be proactive with security — keep antivirus and firewall technology up to date and install patches and updates when they’re available.

If the worst happens and you do fall victim, you’ll also be able to minimize the damage if you’ve done your preparation beforehand. Have a workable and well-rehearsed disaster recovery plan.

A crucial part of mitigation is to have clearly designed and understood access. In today’s enterprise multiple levels of staff access documents and files at all levels using both sanctioned devices and their own bring-your-own-device  (BYOD) tools, and without clear lines of who gets access to what, damage from an exploit can spread even faster.

Ultimately, you’re putting your network’s viability in the hands of your customers. You need your patch to propagate as quickly as possible to shut down the spread. That means you have to make a strong enough case to your users and ensure everybody knows (again, announcing your failure from the rooftops for all to hear and the hit to your reputation that will ensue) that the patch is available and necessary.

Also read: Approaches to Cybersecurity in 5G-driven Enterprise Networks

Where Zero Day Threats Will Lead Us

Like all cybersecurity hazards, zero day threats are growing, as this story reports. Because of the varied and widespread attack vectors involved, they’re also going to be the vanguard in the security arms race. They can be deployed by directly attacking a corporate server, installing malicious code on a web page to snag innocent passers-by (without the website owner’s knowledge) and almost anything in between.

One of the most important paradigms in coming years will be the proper demarcation of data and applications. In an era where your company’s information might live in a computer or rack with that of dozens or hundreds of others at a cloud service, many of them deployed in virtual server or desktop builds using identical operating systems, the protective walls between them become exponentially more permeable, giving zero day threats the means to spread much farther and much faster.

Insist that your IT department or cloud provider set out unshakable SLAs around sandboxing your development and if necessary, immediately cutting it off from the outside world if the worst happens. When it comes to stopping and containing zero day threats in the past, countless metaphors referring to bolting horses and closed gates have been invoked.

Zero day threats will become more widespread simply because of the variety of attack vectors and functions they serve, and vigilance, as always, is key. Even then, if your processes and applications are virtually impenetrable and you’re unlikely to be affected directly, an attack on another customer using the same cloud service as you will affect network health and performance overall. It will also impose costs, both in data response times and money, that your provider will ultimately have to spread among its entire customer base — including you. That makes zero day threats everybody’s problem, and the enterprise networks of tomorrow will thank us for joining the fight.

Read next: 5 Best Practices for DDoS Mitigation

The post Understanding and Preventing Zero Day Threats appeared first on Enterprise Networking Planet.

The number of wireless protocols being touted by carriers and device manufacturers is just as dizzying. You need a clear-eyed, informative guide about the unwired standards that will be critical for your enterprise to excel. 

802.11ax

You’ve heard the latest 802.11 Wi-Fi standard by its sexier brand name, Wi-Fi 6, built to supersede the older 802.11ac standard most of us are using now. It has an advertised maximum speed of 10Gbps (that’s enough to download ten 720p quality movies in a second), but that’s theoretical and depends on a lot of variables. Still, you should get almost 3Gbps, which will still go a long way when shared in even a large workplace.

It’s also smarter about the way it bundles and transports data, meaning far fewer dropouts or interruptions, so it’s much more reliable in congested environments. Lastly and perhaps most important in a corporate setting, it supports stronger security standards.

 802.11ac wave1

Now Wi-Fi 6 is approaching fast, the previous standard has been retroactively termed ‘Wi-Fi 5’. It was developed with just a few users in mind (the average speed was 866.7 Mbps), accessing router modems from the burgeoning laptop fleet.

802.11ac popularized Wi-Fi throughout the world thanks to being the first protocol to use dual-band technology, supporting 2.4GHz and 5GHz devices at the same time (e.g.,  your laptop and smartphone could connect concurrently without interference).

Why is it still worth knowing? In a perfect world, every business user across the world would dispose of 802.11ac-compatible kit overnight (assuming it’s recycled responsibly), but with devices from the last decade still pivotal in many enterprises, Wi-Fi 5 is backward compatible with standard going right back to 2009’s 802.11n.

5G

Over the next year or so, 5G will be touted in so much electronics marketing you’re going to think it’s the Holy Grail – and you won’t be far wrong. With a rough top speed of 3Mbps, 3G took advantage of early smartphone apps with light data needs. At around 50Mbps, 4G was built for much heavier use like the ability to watch HD video content on a phone. 5G has a theoretical maximum speed of between 10 and 50Gbps – orders of magnitude faster and able to handle the heaviest data needs across the organization.

But it’s about much more than speed. Older protocols weren’t really built for low latency, but 5G is, with many major carriers reporting latency as low as 20ms. In the real world that means gaming, self-driving cars, etc., will have split-second responsiveness, and in the enterprise, all your live work in progress, IoT information, and high bandwidth content will be (almost) constantly accessible with only a click.

5GNR

Because we’ll have 4G and Wi-Fi 5 tools and applications for some time yet, 5GNR (for “New Radio”) is designed for legacy hardware and software. It’s going to be particularly pertinent to carriers who have hundreds of millions of dollars of older generation infrastructure. When it comes to towers and systems still working with 4G, carriers can dynamically share the signal between 4G LTE and 5G NR. Called dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS), it can be deployed on existing 4G LTE equipment that’s 5GNR compatible.

What does that mean for you? If your service provider hasn’t completely deployed a 5G infrastructure, you might still enjoy the benefits of 5G connectivity with all the advantages of low latency and greater range.

Bluetooth

Since its first patent in 1989, Bluetooth was designed as a short range, low-bandwidth solution. Isn’t Wi-Fi 6 and 5G going to blow its performance out of the water? Indeed, but imagine you run a large factory with hundreds or thousands of IoT devices or a large workspace in a skyscraper with dozens or hundreds of people all accessing handheld devices or laptops. Upgrading all the sensors, nodes, and transmitters to be new-generation compatible will put a considerable dent in your bottom line.

For close quarters communication, look at lower powered, cheaper and, in some cases, older technologies as a stop gap. While you’re deploying and slowly bringing your mobile phone fleet up to date for 5G across the organization, low-powered, low-bandwidth tasks (e.g., a thermometer reading on a robotic lathe, transfer of a spreadsheet) can be transmitted via Bluetooth, the result then folded into your wider, Wi-Fi 6-enabled dataset for action.

Conclusion

Wire-free telecommunications and data exchange is going to become even more important as business continues to evolve thanks to adoption of new standards like Wi-Fi 6 and 5G. But while the new systems promise previously unheard of speeds, uptime, and security, knowing how and where older generations can strengthen your wireless infrastructure is an additional key to success. 

The post Network 101: 5 Essential Wireless Protocols to Support Your Enterprise Now and in the Future appeared first on Enterprise Networking Planet.

Released in 2019, Wi-Fi 6 isn’t just faster, it’s smarter. It encodes data more efficiently, packing more information into radio waves, which means more ones and zeroes per unit of transmission. More powerful chips at both the transmitter (router/modem) and receiver (laptop/phone) end can handle the extra load, and the whole system means more (and quicker) bandwidth.

Similarly, 5G was built for data from the ground up. Where older networks bundled voice and data, 5G recognizes that voice is just more data — and not even the most demanding kind. Topping out at 10Gbps, 5G is built to handle not just high intensity but constant uptime for time sensitive applications like gaming, self-driving cars, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

They’ll combine to form an always-on, high-access internet — anywhere.

Also read: Enterprise Networking Trends in 2021

Advancing Wireless Networks

5G and Wi-Fi 6 are built from the same foundation: higher data rates to support new applications and increased capacity to connect more users and devices. So it’s surprising to realize they emerged from older standards that initially had little in common.

Wi-Fi, made mainstream in the early broadband era, was designed as a local area solution long before we dreamed of Netflix or cloud gaming. It was built for the MIME files of email content and the text and .gifs of rudimentary webpages.

Cell networks caught on with wide scale mobile phone use in the ‘90s; the second generation GSM standard adopted to bear the increase in voice traffic. But after the iPhone popularized the notion of the ‘beyond voice’ handheld device, subsequent generations of mobile networks bundled more data capability.

The new climate facing business includes practices and architectures like the industrial internet, the principles of mobile first for interface design social media, and the ecommerce revolution. The way we use phones and computers has been turned on its head. Network designers have to program and build networks that we need today that will also be future proof. That means technologies like Wi-Fi 6 and 5G need to interconnect and hand services between signals to minimize interruption.

Today you work, live, or play in a given area; your home, office, factory, sales region, country, even the world. In that given area, advanced wireless networks means you’re constantly connected to the services you need to do your job or entertain yourself. Without even having to know about it, access to the dataset you’re working on is seamlessly passed from your home Wi-Fi to your cell signal to the Wi-Fi on the train or bus to the office wireless network when you walk in the door. That applies just as much for an episode of The Queen’s Gambit as quarterly P&L spreadsheets.

For business, it’ll mean constant and rugged uptime, with the bandwidth necessary to do what you want no matter where you are. No more, “Google Docs is taking forever to load on my phone, I’ll check when I get to work.”

In an era where we are expected to be flexible, successful employers understand the workday is set by the action, not the clock. You need to be available and armed with the necessary tools whether you’re at your desk, in bed, or at an out-of-state conference.

If you run a large production line, everything that’s moving can report on its performance and pressure points, synthesizing a flood of data into a handy reckoner that gives you an at-a-glance overview of what might go wrong and when, helping you avoid costly shutdowns.

In the case of an industrial-level manufacturer, that’s more data than today’s cell or Si-Fi networks can handle. The advanced wireless network principle of 5G and Wi-Fi 6 will put you one step ahead of everything going on in your company and wherever your people have to be. 

Also read: The Future of Fixed 5G Networks is Now

Gaming Cues

Once we have the constant, high bandwidth uptime of advanced wireless networks, the sky’s the limit. Business will look for cues about the use cases from other sectors who are already putting advanced wireless networks to good use. They’re already enjoying widespread use (and very robust testing) in gaming, for instance. Cloud gaming not only needs plenty of bandwidth, gamers ensconced in the breakneck pace of online battles can’t endure even a second of downtime.

Corporations and manufacturing are borrowing more than just the principles of always-on connectivity. The workplace is being gamified, with business practices adopting many of the behaviours and working methods from the world of games, including  using virtual reality or augmented reality overlays to prototype models or visualize spaces in the real world.Shoppers can try on clothes virtually, using a product like Google Glass or an internet-connected mirror to display an item of clothing over your image. 3D modellers can design and field test buildings or interior refits using everything from materials to power and air conditioning needs to put a plan through its paces before a single brick is laid. But it all needs the constant uptime and high data intensity that advanced wireless networks will deliver.

Taking Advantage of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G 

Industries need to understand 5G and Wi-Fi 6 developments — it’s not enough to decide on a provider and just plug in a kit. You need to carefully consider the way your teams do their jobs:  where they are, where they need to be, what they need to do, the devices they need to use, and local network access conditions.

Advanced wireless networks is a blend of technologies. To get the most out of it you need to design its deployment to take maximum advantage of the smarts built into 5G and Wi-Fi 6 and their handover capabilities. The points at which services have to hand signals off to another wireless technology will take care of themselves when things are up and running, but you need to identify where they have to be situated, and what impact your growing data needs will exert on them.

Also read: AIOps Will Mean the End of Human Network Management

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