Page 103 - Security Today, March 2019

As the role of IT continues to evolve into a more interdisciplinary field, the need for upskilling its employees grows. Just as workers across the enterprise must become more tech-savvy, workers in the IT department must understand the nuances of marketing. CIOs must increasingly hire employees with business acumen, not just good technology support skills. Enterprises will need to adjust in response to a changing talent ecosystem.
Changes to the physical footprint of today’s businesses are also having an impact to how an IT team responds to network challenges. Take a typical retailer, for example. They may have a central headquarters where network management takes place, as well as a number of distributed retail locations where IT resources are scarce. Responding to user connectivity issues is less of a challenge when they are in the main office. However, if an issue comes up in one of their retail outlets, many times it requires an onsite visit to build a diagnosis and resolution plan.
It’s not just IT departments that are having to adapt. Technology manufacturers are expanding their offerings and focusing on cloud-based solutions to meet the market demand. They’re also having to deal with IT’s changing role and out-of-date technology that just won’t go away.
Cherie Martin, Senior Solutions Marketing Manager for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, said it’s their customer pain points that drive the innovation behind Aruba Central, their cloud-based network management platform.
“Organizationally, our customer’s IT departments are evolving. They need to balance the workload required to offer new business tools with the day-to- day activities of running the network. On average, IT budgets are staying fairly flat relative to the growth of the business, and IT teams are trying to accomplish more with existing resources and skill sets,” she says.
“Unfortunately,” she continues, “existing legacy network management tools do not give IT admins the visibility and control needed to easily maintain the network or simplify chasing down issues in real time. To solve this, Aruba has developed easy-to- use configuration, visibility, and reporting features within Aruba Central that makes life for the IT staff much easier and delivers consistently amazing experiences for both IT admins and end users.”
There is no on-premises hardware or software to maintain. Updates are provided on a regular basis that enhances the visuals and workflows within the GUI. As your network grows, that are no additional appliances to add, power on, cool and put under management. Key features like Aruba Clarity provide advanced client connectivity data that lets you see if your users are experiencing DHCP, authentication, or Wi-Fi issues. This helps ease the burden brought on by all of IT’s new responsibilities. It not only tells you that an issue occurred in one stage of the connection process, but it also tells you exactly why. It is a powerful tool when you can see that DHCP is getting delayed between a specific server and client due to transaction retries for a specific MAC ID on a specific SSID based on specific AP model and client type.
Changes in the way IT must operate is a perfect opportunity for partners to establish themselves in an advisory and/or thought leadership capacity with their customers. Those partners tend to yield the most success at selling cloud-based solutions. Offering your customers a business-class networking features and management that is easy to use and just works is a great way to start the conversation and build confidence.
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