AI-driven Operations (AI Ops) will drive significant changes as IT organizations leverage AI, machine learning, and automation. This transition will provide opportunities for individuals to develop new skills that can enhance their careers.

AI Ops and Self-Optimization

Experts expect the use of AI, machine learning (ML), and deep learning technologies will transform business and impact a wide range of occupations. In the previous blog in this series describing Cisco's AI Ops strategy we examined how tools can be used to self-optimize infrastructure resources. In this blog we will discuss how the adoption of AI Ops will affect people and processes. These changes will create greater efficiencies and new career opportunities. AI Ops can help you and your organization "self-optimize".

Why IT Organizations Will Lead

IT organizations will be on the leading edge of AI/ML transformation. According to a recent survey by IDC, IT was identified as the organization most likely to benefit from AI¹. An IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Cisco, "Artificial Intelligence-Driven, Cloud-based Systems Management Platforms Fill an Important Market Need", regarding AI-driven management platforms²notes that the major benefits or outcomes seen from AI in the IT organization include:

• Improve availability
• Lower IT software costs
• Speed time to market

You can download the InfoBrief here.

A leading analyst firm also indicated the use of AI in IT operations was expected to be one of the top trends in 2019. This recent article entitled "AIOps to Drive Big IT Pivot" explained why IT organizations are most likely to quickly realize benefits from AI.

It's really a natural fit. The vast quantities of machine data generated by infrastructure hardware and software is too much for humans to analyze in a timely and cost-effective manner. But apply machine learning and other AI to all this data, and you may be able to predict potential equipment issues, detect security vulnerabilities, and more, perhaps in real time.

New Career Opportunities

As IT organizations adopt AI Ops tools and new processes, they will create new roles and positions. According to this article, there are eight emerging AI jobs for IT professionals. Some of these positions have interesting new titles, such as Machine Learning Data Scientist, Digital Knowledge Manager, and Intelligence Designers.

These new jobs will allow individuals to transition from routine activities to more interesting, higher paying roles. An example of how this transition impacts careers is in the area of DevOps. As DevOps tools and practices have gained broader adoption in IT organizations, they've created new roles. Many operations engineers and administrators have evolved into the role of DevOps engineers. According to Glassdoor, the average systems engineer salary in the U.S. is$89,221, and a network administrator makes an average of$79,380. The average salary of a DevOps engineer is$143,707 -more than 60% higher.

Self-Optimization Is Continuous

AI Ops is still an emerging technology, but the need for the self-optimization of infrastructure and organizational resources is continuous. It requires a holistic approach with visibility to resources across, data center, cloud, remote offices, and edge environments. As illustrated in the image above, workloads and data need to be deployed based on a variety of policies and criteria. There must be ongoing monitoring, reporting and analysis to manage current workload demands and to identify more opportunities for further improvement.

Continuous improvement is a business imperative. Cisco offers a range of AI Ops tools to help your IT organization continuously improve and achieve the benefits of AI Ops. These tools can also help you by opening new career opportunities and by giving you the ability to stay ahead of the curve as IT organizations adopt AI and ML.

For additional information go to:

Download the IDC InfoBrief

Sources:

1. IDC, "Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Perceptions Survey 2018", January, 2018
2. IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Cisco, "Artificial Intelligence Driven, Cloud-based Systems Management Platforms Fill and Important Market Need", July 2018