Twenty years ago, companies were just beginning to leverage the internet to revolutionize the way they do business. Much has changed since then, of course, with a scrappy online bookseller emerging to become the world’s second largest e-commerce company and one of the biggest cloud providers—not to mention having one of the highest market caps in the financial world.
So what’s next? At Think 2019, a lot of discussion centered on IBM’s concept of the cognitive enterprise, one that uses artificial intelligence and distributed technologies such as blockchain to power—and disrupt—the markets of the future.
Bridging Cloud Native to Your Enterprise
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon might be the epicenter of Cloud Native and Kubernetes, but IBM Think isn’t far off. More than 70 sessions at Think 2019 involved Kubernetes in some capacity, with over 140 Cloud Native technologies represented. A popular topic at the conference was how Cloud Native could enhance traditional enterprise applications, particularly as businesses look to rearchitect their platforms to meet increased demand. This makes sense, as a key component of the cognitive enterprise is the ability to proactively meet customer and system needs.
Is Your Enterprise Cognitive?
Ignoring the cognitive enterprise today might prove as big a strategic blunder as missing the e-business bandwagon back in the 90s. But the path to cognition isn’t easy. For starters, building confidence in artificial intelligence takes time, as enterprises start to adopt technology that impacts their customers and operations.
To keep up with constant change, we need to be more cognizant of the problems our clients face. But replatforming and adopting complex technology is no mean feat. Decisions around paying off technical debt vs. future feature capabilities are not easy for product owners. Validating how/if change is impacting our business is an art form, with the objective and subjective merging. For instance, does providing a better customer and user experience lead to a higher conversion rate?
AppDynamics has the capability to track this customer journey—from mobile phone to mainframe—a fact highlighted by Jonah Kowall, AppDynamics Vice President of Market Development and Insights, in his excellent Think 2019 session. We enable your enterprise to proactively monitor, analyze and repair issues across a large swatch of your application infrastructure.
Jonah Kowall’s IBM Think session
Artificial Intelligence Goes Mainstream
The historic 1990s chess matches between human and machine—Garry Kasparov vs. IBM Deep Blue—showed that a computer could beat the best chess player in the world. Artificial intelligence has come a long way since then, with modern enterprises embracing AI/ML technology in a big way. Today, deep learning frameworks are some of the most popular open source packages available. At Think 2019, the number and variety of vendors featuring AI/ML capabilities, from robotic process automation to AppDynamics’ AIOps, showed just how far artificial intelligence has advanced in the enterprise.
AppDynamics Looks Forward with AIOps
As organizations start to navigate the cognitive enterprise, they’ll need to make many critical decisions when upgrading and rearchitecting their platforms. AppDynamics is embarking on an AIOps journey to help businesses strengthen their consumer and enterprise portfolios with cognitive technologies. We are excited to continue and deepen our IBM partnership, and to help each organization become a cognitive enterprise.
