Putting AI Into AIOps: A Future Beyond Dashboards

In today’s fast-paced IT environment, traditional dashboards and reactive alert systems are quickly becoming outdated. The digital landscape requires a more proactive and intelligent approach to IT operations. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI) in IT Operations (AIOps), a transformative approach that leverages AI to turn data into actionable insights, automated responses, and enabling self-healing systems. This shift isn’t just integrating AI into existing frameworks; it has the potential to fundamentally transform IT operations.

The Evolution of IT Operations: From Reactive to Proactive

The traditional model of IT operations has long been centered around dashboards, manual interventions, and reactive processes. What once sufficed in simpler systems is now inadequate in today’s complex, interconnected environments. Today’s systems produce vast data of logs, metrics, events, and alerts, creating overwhelming noise that hides critical issues. It’s like searching for a whisper in a roaring crowd. The main challenge isn’t the lack of data, but the difficulty in extracting timely, actionable insights.

AIOps steps in by addressing this very challenge, offering a path to shift from reactive incident management to proactive operational intelligence. The introduction of a robust AIOps maturity model allows organizations to progress from basic automation and predictive analytics to advanced AI techniques, such as generative and multimodal AI. This evolution allows IT operations to become insight-driven, continuously improving, and ultimately self-sustaining. What if your car could not only drive itself and learn from every trip, but also only alert you when critical action was needed, cutting through the noise and allowing you to focus solely on the most important decisions?

Leveraging LLMs to Augment Operations

A key advancement in AIOps is the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) to support IT teams. LLMs process and respond in natural language to enhance decision-making by offering troubleshooting suggestions, identifying root causes, and proposing next steps, seamlessly collaborating with the human operators.

When problems occur in IT operations, teams often lose crucial time manually sifting through logs, metrics, and alerts to diagnose the problem. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack; we waste valuable time digging through endless data before we can even begin solving the real issue. With LLMs integrated into the AIOps platform, the system can instantly analyze large volumes of unstructured data, such as incident reports and historical logs, and suggest the most probable root causes. LLMs can quickly recommend the right service group for an issue using context and past incident data, speeding up ticket assignment and resulting in quicker user resolution.

LLMs can also offer recommended next steps for remediation based on best practices and past incidents, speeding up resolution and helping less experienced team members make informed decisions, boosting overall team competence. It’s like having a seasoned mentor by your side, guiding you with expert advice for every step. Even beginners can quickly solve problems with confidence, improving the whole team’s performance.

Revolutionizing Incident Management in Global Finance Use Case

In the global finance industry, seamless IT operations are essential for ensuring reliable and secure financial transactions. System downtimes or failures can lead to major financial losses, regulatory fines, and damaged customer trust. Traditionally, IT teams used a mix of monitoring tools and manual analysis to address issues, but this often causes delays, missed alerts, and a backlog of unresolved incidents. It’s like managing a train network with outdated signals as everything slows down to avoid mistakes, but delays still lead to costly problems. Similarly, traditional IT incident management in finance slows responses, risking system failures and trust.

IT Operations Challenge

A major global financial institution is struggling with frequent system outages and transaction delays. Its traditional operations model relies on multiple monitoring tools and dashboards, causing slow response times, a high Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), and an overwhelming number of false alerts that burden the operations team. The institution urgently needs a solution that can detect and diagnose issues more quickly while also predicting and preventing problems before they disrupt financial transactions.

AIOps Implementation

The institution implements an AIOps platform that consolidates data from multiple sources, such as transaction logs, network metrics, events, and configuration management databases (CMDBs). Using machine learning, the platform establishes a baseline for normal system behavior and applies advanced techniques like temporal proximity filtering and collaborative filtering to detect anomalies. These anomalies, which would typically be lost in the overwhelming data noise, are then correlated through association models to accurately identify the root causes of issues, streamlining the detection and diagnosis process.

To enhance incident management, the AIOps platform integrates a Large Language Model (LLM) to strengthen the operations team’s capabilities. When a transaction delay occurs, the LLM quickly analyzes unstructured data from historical logs and recent incident reports to identify likely causes, such as a recent network configuration change or a database performance issue. Based on patterns from similar incidents, it determines which service group should take ownership, streamlining ticket assignment and accelerating issue resolution, ultimately reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR).

Results

• Reduced MTTR and MTTA: The financial institution experiences a significant reduction in Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA), as issues are identified and addressed much faster with AIOps. The LLM-driven insights allow the operations team to bypass initial diagnostic steps, leading directly to effective resolutions.
• Proactive Issue Prevention: By leveraging predictive analytics, the platform can forecast potential issues, allowing the institution to take preventive measures. For example, if a trend suggests a potential future system bottleneck, the platform can automatically reroute transactions or notify the operations team to perform preemptive maintenance.
• Enhanced Workforce Efficiency: The integration of LLMs into the AIOps platform enhances the efficiency and decision-making capabilities of the operations team. By providing dynamic suggestions and troubleshooting steps, LLMs empower even the less experienced team members to handle complex incidents with confidence, improving the user experience.
• Reduced Alert Fatigue: LLMs help filter out false positives and irrelevant alerts, reducing the burden of noise that overwhelms the operations team. By focusing attention on critical issues, the team can work more effectively without being bogged down by unnecessary alerts.
• Improved Decision-Making: With access to data-driven insights and recommendations, the operations team can make more informed decisions. LLMs analyze vast amounts of data, drawing on historical patterns to offer guidance that would be difficult to obtain manually.
• Scalability: As the financial institution grows, AIOps and LLMs scale seamlessly, handling increasing data volumes and complexity without sacrificing performance. This ensures that the platform remains effective as operations expand.

Moving Past Incident Management

The use case shows how AIOps, enhanced by LLMs, can revolutionize incident management in finance, but its potential applies across industries. With a strong maturity model, organizations can achieve excellence in monitoring, security, and compliance. Supervised learning optimizes anomaly detection and reduces false positives, while generative AI and LLMs analyze unstructured data, offering deeper insights and advanced automation.

By focusing on high-impact areas such as reducing resolution times and automating tasks, businesses can rapidly gain value from AIOps. The aim is to build a fully autonomous IT environment that self-heals, evolves, and adapts to new challenges in real time much like a car that not only drives itself but learns from each trip, optimizing performance and solving issues before they arise.

Conclusion

“Putting AI into AIOps” isn’t just a catchy phrase – it’s a call to action for the future of IT operations. In a world where the pace of change is relentless, merely keeping up or treading water isn’t enough; Organizations must leap ahead to become proactive. AIOps is the key, transforming vast data into actionable insights and moving beyond traditional dashboards.

This isn’t about minor improvements, it’s a fundamental shift. Imagine a world where issues are predicted and resolved before they cause disruption, where AI helps your team make smarter, faster decisions, and operational excellence becomes standard. The global finance example shows real benefits; reduced risks, lower costs, and a seamless user experience.

Those who embrace AI-driven AIOps will lead the way, redefining success in the digital era. The era of intelligent, AI-powered operations is here. Are you ready to lead the charge?

Source: cisco.com

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Unifying Cyber Defenses: How Hybrid Mesh Firewalls Shape Modern Security

The traditional castle-and-moat model of cybersecurity is outdated due to the evolving perimeter caused by remote work and fluid data access. Organizations must integrate security at every touchpoint. The proliferation of IoT devices increases entry points for cybercriminals, necessitating a unified approach to endpoint security.

Advanced technologies like AI and quantum computing are transforming cybersecurity, making threats more sophisticated and encryption standards vulnerable. The convergence of technologies, such as networked sensors and big data, expands the attack surface while improving AI capabilities for both attackers and defenders. The increasing sophistication of cyberattacks, as seen in incidents like the SolarWinds hack and Colonial Pipeline attack, highlights the need for proactive, integrated security strategies.

Critical infrastructure vulnerability, regulatory considerations, and the necessity of collaborative security practices underscore the importance of a Unified Security Platform to provide adaptive defenses and foster a security-conscious culture within organizations. The Hybrid Mesh Firewall emerges as a vital component in this landscape, offering the flexibility and comprehensive protection required to meet modern cybersecurity challenges. Before we delve into “What is Hybrid Mesh Firewall”, let us discuss a few customer problems:

Key problem areas for customers

1. Misconfigurations and vulnerability exploitation

One of the most significant issues plaguing organizations is the prevalence of misconfigurations and the exploitation of these vulnerabilities. Despite having multiple security products in place, the risk of human error and the complexity of managing these systems can lead to critical security gaps.

2. Rapid attack execution

The speed at which cyber-attacks can be executed has increased dramatically. This necessitates even faster defense responses, which many traditional security setups struggle to provide. Organizations need solutions that can respond in real-time to threats, minimizing potential damage.

3. Hybrid environments

The modern workforce is distributed, with employees working from various locations and using multiple devices. This hybrid environment requires robust protection that is enforced as close to the user or device as possible. The conventional approach of backhauling remote user traffic to a central data center for inspection is no longer viable due to performance, scalability, and availability constraints.

The emergence of SASE has transformed how network and security solutions are designed, providing connectivity and protection for a remote workforce. However, the shift to distributed controls has become inevitable, presenting its own set of challenges. Many customers deploy best-of-breed security products from different vendors, hoping to cover all bases. Unfortunately, this often results in a complex, multi-vendor environment that is difficult to manage.

4. Siloed security management

Managing security across different silos, with multiple teams and solutions, adds to the complexity. Each system must operate effectively within the principles of Zero Trust, but ensuring consistent performance across all products is challenging. Security systems need to work cohesively, but disparate tools rarely interact seamlessly, making it hard to measure and manage risks comprehensively.

The hybrid mesh firewall solution

Hybrid mesh firewall platforms enable security policy enforcement between workloads and users across any network, especially in on-premises-first organizations. They offer control and management planes to connect multiple enforcement points and are delivered as a mix of hardware, virtual, cloud-native, and cloud-delivered services, integrating with other technologies to share security context signals.

By unifying various firewall architectures, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls ensure consistency and coherence, proactively identifying gaps and suggesting remediations for a holistic approach to network security.

Benefits of hybrid mesh firewalls

1. Unified security management: By consolidating various security functions into a single platform, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls simplify management and reduce the likelihood of misconfigurations. Administrators can oversee and configure all aspects of network security from one place, ensuring that no critical security gaps are overlooked.
2. Proactive threat identification and remediation: The platform continuously monitors the network for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, such as when a team managing the Secure Service Edge (SSE) solution inadvertently allows direct access to a risky file-sharing site. In such cases, the firewall promptly alerts the admin and provides a remediation flow, ensuring only low-risk apps access the internet directly while other traffic is securely tunneled. This proactive approach prevents incidents before they occur, safeguarding the network from potential threats like data exfiltration or malware infiltration.
3. Real-time response: With the capability to respond in real-time to threats, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls ensure that security measures keep pace with the speed of attacks. This rapid response capability is crucial for minimizing damage and maintaining business continuity.
4. Zero trust enforcement: Each component of the security system operates independently but within the overarching principle of Zero Trust. This means that the endpoint protection software on a remote user’s device functions correctly, regardless of the firewall configuration at the data center, and vice versa. Every element of the security infrastructure works to ensure that trust is never assumed and always verified.

Beyond remote work: Securing workloads everywhere

The need for robust security extends beyond the realm of remote work. Modern organizations are leveraging a mix of private and public cloud environments to run their workloads. Whether it’s a private data center, a public cloud provider like AWS or Azure, or even multiple public clouds, the security landscape becomes increasingly complex.

Hybrid Mesh Firewalls are designed to secure workloads regardless of their location. This approach ensures that security policies are consistently applied across all environments, whether on-premises, in a single public cloud, or across multiple cloud providers.

Securing hybrid workloads:

1. Consistent policy enforcement: By providing a unified platform, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls ensure that security policies are consistently enforced across all environments. This eliminates the risk of discrepancies that can arise from using different security products in different locations.
2. Integrated visibility and control: With integrated visibility into all network traffic, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls allow administrators to monitor and control security policies from a single interface. Centralized management is crucial for identifying and mitigating risks across diverse environments.
3. Scalability and flexibility: As organizations grow and their infrastructure evolves, Hybrid Mesh Firewalls offer the scalability and flexibility needed to adapt to new requirements. Whether adding new cloud environments or scaling up existing ones, the firewall platform can grow with the organization.

Conclusion

The need for Hybrid Mesh Firewalls has never been more critical. As organizations navigate the complexities of a distributed workforce, hybrid environments, and the ever-evolving threat landscape, a unified, proactive, and real-time approach to network security is essential. Hybrid Mesh Firewalls offer the consistency, control, and comprehensive protection needed to secure modern hybrid environments effectively. By addressing the key problem areas of misconfigurations, rapid attack execution, and siloed security management, they provide a robust solution that meets the demands of today’s cybersecurity challenges and beyond.

Source: cisco.com

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Beat the Cisco 700-760 SAAM Exam: 7 Effective Study Techniques

In the ever-evolving landscape of IT, Cisco certifications have consistently set the standard for expertise and authority. Among these, the Cisco 700-760 SAAM (Cisco Security Architecture) certification is a highly sought-after credential that not only validates your knowledge but also opens doors to promising career opportunities. Whether you’re an IT professional looking to advance in your career or a student aiming to specialize in security architecture, the 700-760 SAAM certification is a crucial step in your journey.

Know the Cisco 700-760 SAAM Certification

The 700-760 exam is designed to assess your knowledge across Cisco's security portfolio, which is crucial for obtaining the security specialization in various roles within the industry. The exam covers a broad spectrum of topics from the threat landscape, cybersecurity issues, Cisco’s security solutions, and customer interaction strategies in security contexts​.

Cisco 700-760 Exam Overview:

• Exam Price- $80 USD
• Duration- 90 minutes
• Number of Questions- 55-65
• Passing Score- Variable (750-850 / 1000 Approx.)

700-760 SAAM Exam Key Topics:

• Threat Landscape and Security Issues (20% of the exam)
  Focus on digitization in cybersecurity, understanding cyber threats, and identifying fragmented security in businesses.
• Focus on digitization in cybersecurity, understanding cyber threats, and identifying fragmented security in businesses.
• Selling Cisco Security (15% of the exam)
  Learn about Cisco's support for practice development and their security portfolio that can be leveraged to enhance partner support and profitability​.
• Customer Conversations (15% of the exam)
  It’s crucial to understand how to discuss security solutions tailored to customer-specific needs and challenges.
• IoT Security (15% of the exam)
  IoT is becoming increasingly critical; understand Cisco’s IoT solutions and the importance of layered protection.
• Cisco Zero Trust (15% of the exam)
  Dive into the concepts of trust-centric security and zero-trust solutions, focusing on their implementation and benefits.
• Cisco Security Solutions Portfolio (20% of the exam)
  This involves a comprehensive understanding of Cisco’s security solutions that address modern network environments and next-generation network challenges​.

5 Benefits of the Cisco 700-760 SAAM Certification

1. Enhanced Career Opportunities

Earning the 700-760 SAAM certification opens doors to advanced roles in cybersecurity within Cisco's ecosystem and partner organizations. It signifies expertise in Cisco’s security solutions, making you a preferred candidate for roles requiring specialized security knowledge.

2. Recognition of Expertise

Cisco Security Architecture for Account Managers certification is recognized globally and demonstrates your commitment to the cybersecurity profession. It validates your skills to employers and peers, establishing your credibility in the field.

3. Access to Exclusive Resources

Certified professionals gain access to a wealth of resources from Cisco, including advanced training materials, up-to-date information on security technologies, and invitations to exclusive networking events.

4. Improved Earning Potential

Holding a Cisco certification like the 700-760 SAAM can lead to higher salary opportunities compared to non-certified peers, as it highlights a specialized skill set in a high-demand area.

5. Professional Development and Growth

Preparing for and achieving the Cisco Security Architecture for Account Managers certification helps you stay current with industry standards and technological advancements, ensuring your professional growth and continuous learning in the rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape.

7 Effective Study Techniques to Crack 700-760 SAAM Exam:

1. Understand the 700-760 SAAM Exam Blueprint

The first step in your preparation should be to thoroughly review the exam blueprint, which Cisco provides on its official website. This document outlines all the exam objectives, the key topics covered, and their respective weightings. By understanding the blueprint, you can prioritize your study efforts according to the importance of each topic in the exam. This strategic approach ensures that you allocate more time to the areas that will likely constitute a larger portion of the exam questions.

2. Leverage Official Cisco Materials

Cisco offers a range of study materials specifically designed for the 700-760 SAAM exam. These include study guides, course materials, and other educational resources that are up-to-date with the latest exam content and format. Utilizing these official materials is crucial as they are tailored to cover all the necessary topics comprehensively. Moreover, these resources are created by experts with in-depth knowledge of Cisco’s security architecture, ensuring that they are both reliable and relevant.

3. Participate in Training Courses

Enrolling in official Cisco training courses can significantly enhance your understanding of complex topics. These courses are usually conducted by Cisco-certified instructors who provide valuable insights and clarifications on intricate concepts. Training sessions also offer practical experience and examples that can help you better understand how theoretical concepts are applied in real-world scenarios, which is invaluable for internalizing the exam material.

4. Join Study Groups and Forums

Interacting with peers and experienced professionals through study groups and online forums can greatly benefit your exam preparation. These platforms allow you to exchange knowledge, discuss difficult concepts, and get advice from individuals who have successfully passed the exam. Additionally, study groups can offer moral support, keeping you motivated throughout your preparation process.

5. Practice with 700-760 SAAM Online Exams

Practicing with online exams is essential for effective exam preparation. These practice tests mimic the actual exam environment, helping you familiarize yourself with the exam structure and timing. They also provide immediate feedback, allowing you to identify areas where you need further study or improvement. Regular practice with these exams can boost your confidence and improve your time management skills during the actual test.

6. Review and Revise

Regular review and revision of your study materials are key to retaining the information you've learned. Make it a habit to take detailed notes during your study sessions and revisit them frequently. This continuous engagement with the material helps deepen your understanding and ensures that you remember key details during the exam.

7. Stay Informed of Updates

Staying updated with any changes to the exam content or format is crucial. Cisco may periodically update the exam syllabus or format to reflect the latest industry trends and technologies. Regularly check Cisco’s official website for any announcements or updates regarding the 700-760 SAAM exam. This ensures that your preparation is aligned with the most current standards and expectations.

By following these steps and fully engaging with the preparation process, you can enhance your chances of passing the Cisco 700-760 SAAM certification exam, setting a solid foundation for your career in cybersecurity.

Conclusion: Achieve 700-760 SAAM Certification Today

Embarking on the path to Cisco Security Architecture for Account Managers certification is a significant step towards becoming a proficient security architect. Remember, the key to success lies in thorough preparation, understanding the core concepts, and continuous practice.

Explore the benefits of Online Practice Exams today. Familiarize yourself with the detailed syllabus and take advantage of the extensive question banks and real-time analytics at your fingertips. Begin your Cisco Security Architecture certification journey now and unlock your potential in the cybersecurity domain.

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How to avoid common mistakes when adopting AI

I’ll never cease to be amazed by the Olympic runners. As someone who has logged my fair share of runs, I’m totally mesmerized by these runners’ paces. I get short of breath just watching them on my TV.

Olympic runners are worthy of our admiration. But these athletes didn’t wake up the day before the Olympics and decide to hop a flight to Paris. Their freedom to run at break-neck speed required years of discipline and training.

They had a method. They trained. Step-by-step. Day-by-day. Until, one day in Paris, they were finally able to harness this power.

This is how we should view AI.

Just like training to be expert runner, a recent Gartner® report (which you can access here complimentarily) emphasizes the importance of a measured approach. According to Gartner, “The building blocks of AI adoption are various and diverse in real life. Nevertheless, when assembled, they follow general principles that support AI progress.” Gartner mentions that “applying these principles is necessary to set realistic expectations, avoid common pitfalls, and keep AI initiatives on track.”

You can’t be in the Olympics on day one — nor do you want to be in the Olympics on day one. Growing into an AI-mature organization is about following a roadmap — a proven method — and not biting off more than you can chew.

By defining a clear strategy, communicating frequently, and setting measurable outcomes, organizations can optimize their results and avoid common pitfalls.

The Gartner phased approach to AI adoption

AI can help you classify and understand complex sets of data, automate decisions without human intervention, and generate anything from content to code by utilizing large repositories of data. However, if you underestimate the importance of getting your priorities in order first, you may be forced to learn the hard way and suffer delays and frustration.

In the report, Gartner offers an AI adoption framework where “organizations will avoid major pitfalls and maximize the chances of successful AI implementation.” Gartner tells organizations to “use the AI adoption curve to identify and achieve your goals for activities that increase AI value creation by solving business problems better, faster, at a lower cost and with greater convenience.”

Let’s look at our takeaways from these key phases.

Phase 1. Planning

Start small. Getting into peak running condition starts with short runs. Identify and recruit an internal champion to help socialize efforts and secure support from key stakeholders. Establish three to six use cases with measurable outcomes that benefit your line of business.

Phase 2. Experimentation

Practice makes perfect. Invest in the humans, processes, and technology that ease the transition between phases, such as funding a Center of Excellence (COE) and teaching practical knowledge of cloud AI APIs. Build executive awareness with realistic goals. Experiment. Break things. And don’t be afraid to change course on your strategy. Be flexible and know when to pivot!

Phase 3. Stabilization

At this point in the process, you have a basic AI governance model in place. The first AI use cases are in production, and your initial AI implementation team has working policies to mitigate risks and assure compliance. This stage is referred to as the “pivotal point” — it is all about stabilizing your plans, so you are ready to expand with additional, more complex use cases.

With strategic objectives defined, budgets in place, AI experts on hand, and technology at the ready, you can finalize an organizational structure and complete the processes for the development and deployment of AI.

Phase 4. Expansion

High costs are common at this stage of AI adoption as initial use cases prove their value and momentum builds. It’s natural to hire more staff, upskill employees, and incur infrastructure costs as the wider organization takes advantage of AI in daily operations.

Track spending and be sure to demonstrate progress against goals to learn from your efforts. Socialize outcomes with stakeholders for transparency. Remember, just like run training, it’s a process of steady improvement. Track your results, show progress, and build on your momentum. As you grow more experienced, you should expand, evolve, and optimize. Providing your organization sees measurable results, consider advancing efforts to support more high risk/high reward use cases.

Phase 5. Leadership

AI will succeed in an organization that fosters transparency, training, and shared usage of across business units, not limited to exclusive access. Build an “AI first” culture from the top down, where all workers understand the strengths and weaknesses of AI to be productive and innovate security.

Lessons from the AI graveyard

AI adoption will vary and that’s okay! Follow these steps to ensure you stay on the path most appropriate for your business. Avoid common mistakes of caving to peer pressure and focus on creating a responsible use of AI that enables you to reduce technology risks and work within the resources currently available. Here’s some advice from those that hit a speedbump or two.

1. Choose your first project carefully; most AI projects fail to deploy as projected.
2. Don’t underestimate the time it takes to deploy.
3. Ensure your team has the right skills, capacity, and experience to take advantage of AI trends.

No two AI journeys are the same

According to Gartner, “By 2025, 70% of enterprises will have operationalized AI architectures due to the rapid maturity of AI orchestration platforms.” Don’t get discouraged if you are in the 30% that may not be on that path.

Every organization will choose to adopt AI at the rate that is right for them. Some organizations consider themselves laggards, but they are learning from their peers and are taking the necessary steps to create a successful AI implementation. “By 2028, 50% of organizations will have replaced time-consuming bottom-up forecasting approaches with AI, resulting in autonomous operational, demand, and other types of planning.”

Read the complementary report to learn more about key adoption indicators and recommendations to ensure data is central to your strategy—from determining availability, to integration, access and more. This Gartner report provides hands-on, practical tips to help build confidence with tips and recommendations to help embrace the AI journey from planning to expansion.

Source: cisco.com

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The AI Revolution: Transforming Technology and Reshaping Cybersecurity

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing government and technology, driving an urgent need for innovation across all operations. Although historically, local and state government systems have seen only incremental changes with limited AI adoption, today, a significant shift is occurring as AI is integrated across all government sectors.

Benefits of AI Integration

The benefits of these changes are evident. AI-powered systems analyze vast amounts of data, offering insights for better decision-making. Public services become more personalized and efficient, reducing wait times and enhancing citizen satisfaction. Security is significantly bolstered through AI-driven threat detection and response. Consequently, governments are adopting AI and advanced software applications to provide secure, reliable, and resilient services to their citizens, enhancing digital engagement and communication within their communities.

With this rapid growth, cybersecurity operations are among the areas most significantly impacted by advancements in artificial intelligence. CyberOps is at a unique intersection, needing to leverage advanced AI capabilities to enhance effectiveness and resiliency. However, numerous applications and connections are simultaneously challenging it by utilizing emerging AI capabilities to improve their effectiveness and resilience. Despite historically being rigid and resistant to change, CyberOps must adapt to the challenges of an AI-driven digital world.

Whole-of-State / Agency Cybersecurity Approach

Whole-of-State cybersecurity and zero trust governments can be challenged with maintaining digital operations while ensuring sensitive information’s privacy and security. Cisco’s technology allowed agencies to easily meet these requirements through advanced AI-powered security solutions and privacy-preserving AI models. Thanks to techniques like federated learning and differential privacy, sensitive information could be processed and analyzed without compromising individual privacy.

Adopting AI-Driven Services

Adopting AI-driven, easily consumable, on-demand services provides a secure, sustainable, and reliable foundation to build on. Investing in an infrastructure that is secure and flexible allows governments to quickly pivot to the emerging opportunities that the AI revolution brings. No one person could have predicted or prepared for such a transformative shift. Still, the ability to rapidly adapt to the challenges it brought and continue to serve the community and citizens in the ways they deserve is key.

Challenges and Adaptation

Don’t be mistaken, change is often hard. Humans are creatures of habit and comfort and rarely like to be pushed outside our comfort zone. Unfortunately, the AI revolution is doing just that. It is forcing us to adapt and discover new ways to operate and provide what are now seen as even the most basic digital services. The drive and demand for AI-powered services in the government sector are rapidly expanding. We are experiencing one of the most significant catalysts for technological adoption in the state and local government space since the internet became mainstream.

This revolution is driving the necessity for a whole-of-state cybersecurity and zero trust approach. The goal is no longer maintaining the status quo but rather achieving a level of service that provides the foundation for how things can be in an AI-enabled world. Providing enhanced, secure services and support to the community has become the resounding focus of state and local governments.

Cisco’s Role in Supporting Governments

As we navigate this AI revolution, Cisco stands ready to support governments in their journey towards whole-of-state cybersecurity and zero trust adoption. Our comprehensive suite of AI-powered solutions provides the building blocks for a secure and efficient AI-enabled government infrastructure. The shift to a more inclusive, AI-driven government began with specific applications but is rapidly expanding to all sectors and offerings in the state and local government spaces.

Source: cisco.com

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Optimizing AI Workloads with NVIDIA GPUs, Time Slicing, and Karpenter

Maximizing GPU efficiency in your Kubernetes environment

In this article, we will explore how to deploy GPU-based workloads in an EKS cluster using the Nvidia Device Plugin, and ensuring efficient GPU utilization through features like Time Slicing. We will also discuss setting up node-level autoscaling to optimize GPU resources with solutions like Karpenter. By implementing these strategies, you can maximize GPU efficiency and scalability in your Kubernetes environment.

Additionally, we will delve into practical configurations for integrating Karpenter with an EKS cluster, and discuss best practices for balancing GPU workloads. This approach will help in dynamically adjusting resources based on demand, leading to cost-effective and high-performance GPU management. The diagram below illustrates an EKS cluster with CPU and GPU-based node groups, along with the implementation of Time Slicing and Karpenter functionalities. Let’s discuss each item in detail.

Basics of GPU and LLM

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) was originally designed to accelerate image processing tasks. However, due to its parallel processing capabilities, it can handle numerous tasks concurrently. This versatility has expanded its use beyond graphics, making it highly effective for applications in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

When a process is launched on GPU-based instances these are the steps involved at the OS and hardware level:

• Shell interprets the command and creates a new process using fork (create new process) and exec (Replace the process’s memory space with a new program) system calls.
• Allocate memory for the input data and the results using cudaMalloc(memory is allocated in the GPU’s VRAM)
• Process interacts with GPU Driver to initialize the GPU context here GPU driver manages resources including memory, compute units and scheduling
• Data is transferred from CPU memory to GPU memory
• Then the process instructs GPU to start computations using CUDA kernels and the GPU schedular manages the execution of the tasks
• CPU waits for the GPU to finish its task, and the results are transferred back to the CPU for further processing or output.
• GPU memory is freed, and GPU context gets destroyed and all resources are released. The process exits as well, and the OS reclaims the resource

Compared to a CPU which executes instructions in sequence, GPUs process the instructions simultaneously. GPUs are also more optimized for high performance computing because they don’t have the overhead a CPU has, like handling interrupts and virtual memory that is necessary to run an operating system. GPUs were never designed to run an OS, and thus their processing is more specialized and faster.

Large Language Models

A Large Language Model refers to:

• “Large”: Large Refers to the model’s extensive parameters and data volume with which it is trained on
• “Language”: Model can understand and generate human language
• “Model”: Model refers to neural networks

Run LLM Model

Ollama is the tool to run open-source Large Language Models and can be download here https://ollama.com/download

Pull the example model llama3:8b using ollama cli

ollama -h

Large language model runner

​

Usage:

  ollama [flags]

  ollama [command]

​

Available Commands:

  serve Start ollama

  create Create a model from a Modelfile

  show Show information for a model

  run Run a model

  pull Pull a model from a registry

  push Push a model to a registry

  list List models

  ps List running models

  cp Copy a model

  rm Remove a model

  help Help about any command

​

Flags:

  -h, --help help for ollama

  -v, --version Show version information

​

Use "ollama [command] --help" for more information about a command.

ollama pull llama3:8b: Pull the model

ollama pull llama3:8b

pulling manifest 

pulling 6a0746a1ec1a... 100% ▕██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 4.7 GB 

pulling 4fa551d4f938... 100% ▕██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 12 KB 

pulling 8ab4849b038c... 100% ▕██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 254 B 

pulling 577073ffcc6c... 100% ▕██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 110 B 

pulling 3f8eb4da87fa... 100% ▕██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 485 B 

verifying sha256 digest 

writing manifest 

removing any unused layers 

success

ollama list: List the models

developer:src > ollama show llama3:8b

  Model 

        arch llama 

        parameters 8.0B 

        quantization Q4_0 

        context length 8192 

        embedding length 4096 

  Parameters 

        num_keep 24 

        stop "<|start_header_id|>" 

        stop "<|end_header_id|>" 

        stop "<|eot_id|>" 

  License 

        META LLAMA 3 COMMUNITY LICENSE AGREEMENT 

        Meta Llama 3 Version Release Date: April 18, 2024

ollama run llama3:8b: Run the model

developer:src > ollama run llama3:8b

>>> print all primes between 1 and n

Here is a Python solution that prints all prime numbers between 1 and `n`:

​

```Python

def print_primes(n):

    for possiblePrime in range(2, n + 1):

        # Assume number is prime until shown it is not. 

        isPrime = True

        for num in range(2, int(possiblePrime ** 0.5) + 1):

            if possiblePrime % num == 0:

                isPrime = False

                break

        if isPrime:

            print(possiblePrime)

​

n = int(input("Enter the number: "))

print_primes(n)

```

​

In this code, we loop through all numbers from `2` to `n`. For each number, we assume it's prime and then check if it has any 

divisors other than `1` and itself. If it does, then it's not a prime number. If it doesn't have any divisors, then it is a 

prime number.

​

The reason why we only need to check up to the square root of the number is because a larger factor of the number would be a 

multiple of smaller factor that has already been checked.

​

Please note that this code might take some time for large values of `n` because it's not very efficient. There are more 

efficient algorithms to find prime numbers, but they are also more complex.

Source: cisco.com

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Unlock the Potential of AI/ML Workloads with Cisco Data Center Networks

Harnessing data is crucial for success in today’s data-driven world, and the surge in AI/ML workloads is accelerating the need for data centers that can deliver it with operational simplicity. While 84% of companies think AI will have a significant impact on their business, just 14% of organizations worldwide say they are fully ready to integrate AI into their business, according to the Cisco AI Readiness Index.

Read More: 300-610: Designing Cisco Data Center Infrastructure (DCID)

The rapid adoption of large language models (LLMs) trained on huge data sets has introduced production environment management complexities. What’s needed is a data center strategy that embraces agility, elasticity, and cognitive intelligence capabilities for more performance and future sustainability.

Impact of AI on businesses and data centers

While AI continues to drive growth, reshape priorities, and accelerate operations, organizations often grapple with three key challenges:

◉ How do they modernize data center networks to handle evolving needs, particularly AI workloads?

◉ How can they scale infrastructure for AI/ML clusters with a sustainable paradigm?

◉ How can they ensure end-to-end visibility and security of the data center infrastructure?

Figure 1: Key network challenges for AI/ML requirements

While AI visibility and observability are essential for supporting AI/ML applications in production, challenges remain. There’s still no universal agreement on what metrics to monitor or optimal monitoring practices. Furthermore, defining roles for monitoring and the best organizational models for ML deployments remain ongoing discussions for most organizations. With data and data centers everywhere, using IPsec or similar services for security is imperative in distributed data center environments with colocation or edge sites, encrypted connectivity, and traffic between sites and clouds.

AI workloads, whether utilizing inferencing or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), require distributed and edge data centers with robust infrastructure for processing, securing, and connectivity. For secure communications between multiple sites—whether private or public cloud—enabling encryption is key for GPU-to-GPU, application-to-application, or traditional workload to AI workload interactions. Advances in networking are warranted to meet this need.

Cisco’s AI/ML approach revolutionizes data center networking

At Cisco Live 2024, we announced several advancements in data center networking, particularly for AI/ML applications. This includes a Cisco Nexus One Fabric Experience that simplifies configuration, monitoring, and maintenance for all fabric types through a single control point, Cisco Nexus Dashboard. This solution streamlines management across diverse data center needs with unified policies, reducing complexity and improving security. Additionally, Nexus HyperFabric has expanded the Cisco Nexus portfolio with an easy-to-deploy as-a-service approach to augment our private cloud offering.

Figure 2: Why the time is now for AI/ML in enterprises

Nexus Dashboard consolidates services, creating a more user-friendly experience that streamlines software installation and upgrades while requiring fewer IT resources. It also serves as a comprehensive operations and automation platform for on-premises data center networks, offering valuable features such as network visualizations, faster deployments, switch-level energy management, and AI-powered root cause analysis for swift performance troubleshooting.

As new buildouts that are focused on supporting AI workloads and associated data trust domains continue to accelerate, much of the network focus has justifiably been on the physical infrastructure and the ability to build a non-blocking, low-latency lossless Ethernet. Ethernet’s ubiquity, component reliability, and superior cost economics will continue to lead the way with 800G and a roadmap to 1.6T.

Figure 3: Cisco’s AI/ML approach

By enabling the right congestion management mechanisms, telemetry capabilities, ports speeds, and latency, operators can build out AI-focused clusters. Our customers are already telling us that the discussion is moving quickly towards fitting these clusters into their existing operating model to scale their management paradigm. That’s why it is essential to also innovate around simplifying the operator experience with new AIOps capabilities.

With our Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs), we offer preconfigured solutions optimized for AI/ML workloads to help ensure that the network meets the specific infrastructure requirements of AI/ML clusters, minimizing latency and packet drops for seamless dataflow and more efficient job completion.

Figure 4: Lossless network with Uniform Traffic Distribution

Protect and connect both traditional workloads and new AI workloads in a single data center environment (edge, colocation, public or private cloud) that exceeds customer requirements for reliability, performance, operational simplicity, and sustainability. We are focused on delivering operational simplicity and networking innovations such as seamless local area network (LAN), storage area network (SAN), AI/ML, and Cisco IP Fabric for Media (IPFM) implementations. In turn, you can unlock new use cases and greater value creation.

Source: cisco.com

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