The Necessity And Benefits Of Network Configuration And Change Management

As we forge ahead in a world with exploding growth in devices, network configuration and change management (NCCM) becomes crucial for ensuring uptime and integrity of networks.

Satish Kumar V

In today’s IT environment, organisations are expanding geographically at a great pace. This has resulted in an exponential increase in the size as well as complexity of networks. As these enterprise networks expanded, there followed a dramatic surge in new devices and new technologies in response to business demands. In this scenario, reducing network downtime and preventing performance degradation are major concerns for every IT manager.

A network administrator on a Reddit portal confessed that he erroneously cut a cable that led to over three billion dollars in losses on a stock exchange. As one can see, most outages are caused by manual human intervention, opaque processes and often the big elephant in the room—faulty change management practices. With eighty per cent of network downtime resulting from aforementioned issues, the need of the hour is to reshape how network change is managed through the use of stronger processes and automated tools.

Automate configuration and change management process

Every organisation dealing with multiple networks on their backend needs an automated tool or numerous software products for efficient management of their network configuration. This is where network configuration and change management (NCCM) software plays an important role. An NCCM tool is the best option for any organisation to tackle change while maintaining its networks and also updating the configuration of all components in that particular network— both hardware and software.

Latest NCCM products are helping reshape network change management as a more process-aligned discipline with a widening range of values. These include supporting service integrity and service performance, minimising downtime, optimising security and compliance, managing network assets more holistically and accomplishing what in the past were unachievable new levels of operational efficiency.

Monitor and manage change in all forms

If change is the only constant, then it’s a fact the network will go down, someday in the future for sure. When that happens, the only thing that will get it up and running without business casualty is complete visibility and robust change management processes backed by the right tools.

Usually, configuration information of a network is collected and kept in a database so that changes can be easily tracked. This allows identification and traceability of device configurations. NCCM tools allow changes made in the network to be documented and to be easily rolled back in times of crisis or network outage due to operational changes.

When a fault occurs, an audit trail is conducted, helping IT managers to easily identify the source of the problem and take necessary steps to solve it. Hence, NCCM can be defined as an assessment and remediation tool for automated network, security, compliance, auditing and configuration management.

NCCM: integrate now and reap the rewards in the long term

Organisations have indicated a dramatic ROI with the deployment of an NCCM tool in their processes. They have witnessed a remarkable improvement in network uptime, resulting in better service to the organisations and their customers. Also, more common outages due to performance and security issues, which results in misapplied configurations, have reduced significantly.

With strong adherence to change management processes and inclusion of automated tools, organisations can reduce change and configuration errors significantly. Similarly, time to assess the impact of change on the network can be reduced from hours to a few minutes.

From a specific industry vertical perspective, NCCM helps banks adhere to norms set out in the Reserve Bank of India circular on guidelines addressing the cyber security framework in banks. NCCM specifically fulfils points pertaining to network management and security spanning inventory of authorised devices, appropriate configuration and maintenance of network activity logs.

As we forge ahead in a world with exploding growth in devices, NCCM becomes crucial for ensuring uptime and integrity of networks. Decisionmaking becomes easier, policy compliance becomes a continuous process and auditing gets empowered. Change no longer has to be a fearful and disaster-prone exercise!

AI Has The Potential To Effectively Accompany Human Decision-Making Capacities

Everyone should be able to build their ideas without needing to code, and it should be possible to convert any idea into reality without wasting time, money or resources. Sachin Dev Duggal, founder and chief executive officer, Engineer.ai, discusses how artificial intelligence (AI)-based design platforms can help develop solutions without having programming excellence, in an interaction with Deepshikha Shukla.

Q. How useful are AI-based design platforms?

A. AI-based design platforms empower customers by letting them build and scale software without any technical know-how. Anyone who has an idea can create using such AI-based design platforms. How, exactly?

While working on these platforms, users essentially create a specification utilising smart suggestions that make their project more efficient from the backend. This saves time in selecting and adapting core functionality, especially for developers.

Additionally, for a developer, the code written on multiple occasions need not be re-written. This saves time and money, and benefits the end customer with an overall cheaper, but still bespoke, high-quality product. An AI-based design platform ensures that the product is launched by the set deadline and under budget. In fact, we have seen 90 per cent success on these parameters.

Q. What are the steps for developing a solution on an AI platform?

A. There are many ways to develop a solution with traditional development. For AI-powered development, first, choose what you would like to build and create an account. Start with the basic concept and select from the various options to add different options. In most cases, recommendations are made by the system in line with the idea and competition in the industry.

Then, select the time frame for delivery and location of your development and product. This will influence the overall price. After choosing pay-out options, you will be able to pay for your project.

After this, you get to work with product experts and the development team to launch your product, by the deadline, under budget and working effectively.

Last, keep your product up-to-date. Use a cloud-based operating system to store your code long term to build a foundation to scale your business as quickly as you want.

Q. How does machine learning assist an AI platform during software development?

A. Machine learning is the backbone of AI. After carrying out processes for thousands of users, the algorithm learns their most-likely next steps when creating bespoke technology products.

Additionally, AI ensures that cloud management runs most effectively. It allows developers to re-create only original codes and re-use common codes across multiple products.

Q. How can an AI-based platform help with reliable software development?

A. Such a platform provides a 360-degree approach for customer needs. From creating small products to managing enterprise software and cloud management, it provides reliable software development and scale to everyone. This means everyone can both launch and scale ideas, from startups to billion-dollar businesses.

Q. How important is the role of the government in the development of AI in a country like India?

A. AI is the future; it will be implemented differently across industries, and every industry will be impacted. Therefore for a government managing over 1.3 billion people, it is important to consider how to leverage this technology to govern and empower businesses to expand.

Q. To what extent can AI be useful? What are the other technologies that look promising in 2019?

A. With codes and algorithms, AI has the potential to effectively accompany human decision-making capacities.

There are many technologies that are sector-specific yet important. Besides AI, blockchain (for financial technology) and machine learning are the two technologies impacting the society and the future.

Q. How influential are apps for modern-day businesses?

A. Apps are brand extensions. Without these, a company looking to be a part of the potential US$ 10 trillion economy will not get far in the evolving marketplace. Today, apps have become the first point of contact for users to buy, gather information and generally seek assistance. Similarly, from a corporate point of view, apps are important to find leads, manage stocks and payments, for example.

Q. How are budding entrepreneurs leveraging Engineer’s platform to create better apps?

A. We use one of the top brokers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) in India. It allows us to use aggregate purchasing power of the tens of thousands of instances purchased through our platform coupled with advanced machine learning to buy capacity. This, in turn, provides a great price in the market to newly-emerging entrepreneurs. Our Intelligent Infrastructure Services reduces the time spent on tedious maintenance work from AWS migration service to backup-monitoring.

The Art Of Creating 3D Animations

As augmented reality (AR) continues to develop and achieve new technological advancements, you can expect to see more of it in the communication industry. AR has a strong use-case for communication and is bringing about immersive ways to connect people

Augmented reality (AR) has brought about a paradigm shift in the mode of communication and medium of expression. Among other things, AR is turning out to be an extremely riveting tool in communication that bridges virtual reality (VR) and the real world. It is the process of layering virtual elements over the real-life environment. There are many different cases where AR is making communication for individuals much more immersive.

At companies like Scanta, 3D avatars are being used to understand and react to voice commands on a real-time basis using machine learning. Artificial intelligence (AI), which has machine learning as its backbone, can identify emotions of a user based on spoken words and deliver the 3D avatar that mimics the same emotions along with body movements.

What entails 3D animation

3D animation is the process of creating moving pictures in a digital environment that is three dimensional. Through careful manipulation of objects (3D models) within 3D software, picture sequences can be exported, which give the illusion of movement (animation) based on how objects are manipulated.

3D animation process is a system where tasks are completed at predetermined stages before moving to the next step. It is like an assembly line for animated film production. The process is broken down into three major phases: pre-production, production and postproduction. These phases incorporate tasks that need to be completed before moving on to the next one. Each step builds on previous tasks that were completed.

Phases of 3D animation

Steps involved in creating a 3D animation are explained below.

Pre-production.

The first step in the process of creating a 3D animation is conceptualisation of an idea and translation of said idea into visual form. Pre-production has two dimensions; the first is deciding what will happen first, next and last.

The second is interaction, which involves deciding how the voiceover will interact with images, how visual transitions and effects will help tie images together and how voiceovers will interact with the musical soundtrack.

3D modelling.

3D modelling is a technique in computer graphics for producing a 3D digital representation of any object or surface. A 3D object can be generated automatically or created manually by deforming the mesh or manipulating vertices.

A typical way of creating a 3D model is to take a simple object, called primitive, and extend or grow it into a shape that can be refined and detailed. A primitive can be anything from a single point (called vertex), a two-dimensional line (edge), a curve (spline) or a 3D object (face or polygon).

Texturing.

The next step is shading and texturing. In this phase, textures, materials and colours are added to the 3D model. Every component of the model receives a different shader material to give it a specific look.

Realistic materials. If the object is made of plastic, it is given a reflective, glossy shader. If it is made of glass, the material is partially transparent and refracts light like real-world glass.

Rigging.

Rigging is what makes deforming a character possible. It includes creating a skeleton to deform the character and creating animation controls to enable easy posing of the character. Rigging usually involves adding bones, calculating and implementing skin weights, and adding muscles to create natural movements.

Animation.

This is a process of taking a 3D object and making it move. It is up to the animator to make a 3D object feel like it is alive and breathing.

Rigged for motion.

A 3D character is controlled using a virtual skeleton or rigging, which allows the animator to control the model’s arms, legs, facial expressions and postures.

Pose-to-pose. Animation is typically completed pose-by-pose.

Baking.

Before an animation can be used in Unity software, it must first be imported to the project. Unity can import native Maya (.mb or .ma) and generic FBX files, which can be exported from most animation packages. FBX files include models, bones and animations made in 3D software. There are different texture files (jpeg/ png) that are included at the time of exporting project from Maya to Unity.

Unity software

Unity is a cross-platform game engine. Steps involved in creating a 3D animation using Unity are given below.

Importing FBX files and textures in Unity.

Assets are imported to Unity Editor and all their textures are extracted. Importing these files comes with two things, namely, materials and textures. Materials refer to plastic or glass.

Making prefab of 3D model.

Unity allows users to intuitively create a duplicate, called prefab. Prefab allows storing an asset with all its properties inside the prefab. It acts as a template that designers can use to create new instances of the same object in the scene.

Customising prefab according to requirement. This involves:

• Adding events according to frame rate

• Adding audio to animation

• Adding shading and lights to animation

Adding assets to folder and naming it.

An asset is a representation of any item a designer can use in a game or project. It may come from a file created outside Unity, such as a 3D model, audio file, image or any other file type that Unity supports.

Every communication device or platform takes advantage of this technology and integrates it into services for users to enjoy. Apple took its first shot at this technology and created Animojis. iPhone X features face detection that allows users to unlock their phone with their face instead of using their fingerprint. This face detection feature is also used to apply Animojis over users’ face by detecting facial structures.

A few years ago, Snapchat introduced face filters, which became a popular way for people to chat with their friends. The filters also recognised facial features and followed their movements. The app later developed World Lens, which works in a similar fashion, but instead of adding augmented objects to the face, it adds them to the surrounding environment.

Snapchat expanded its lenses and partnered with Bitmoji to provide users with customisable AR characters. Previously, Bitmoji was a popular 2D personalised character. Now, the company is allowing users to augment unique characters that can dance, wave and do a variety of movements that their 2D counterparts could not.

Scanta has created AR avatars, called Pikamoji, which is an app with over a hundred unique AR avatars that can be augmented and interacted with through a mobile camera. These interactions can be saved to the library and transferred to preferred social media platforms. The company is now taking the next step and using machine learning technology to create intelligent 3D characters. These 3D characters will be able to analyse voice commands and break these down through sentiment analysis.

AR can provide an immersive and fun way for consumers to learn or be directed to a product or brand. It has started to drive brand awareness and sales by grabbing the attention of consumers in ways not seen before.

Currently, employees use voicebased communication, including video chats. The problem with this is that it lacks authenticity or a layer of emotion that people get from a live face-to-face interaction. AR has the ability to bring authenticity to the workforce. Instead of video-conferencing, users can use AR glasses to augment and see each other in real time. They can walk around and interact with each other instead of being confined to a computer or phone screen.

As AR continues to develop and exceed technological advancements, you can expect to see more of it in the communication industry. AR has a strong use-case for communication and is bringing about immersive ways to connect people.