Staff Pick Archives - Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews

The 6 Best Cameras for Video Marketing to Consider Using

William Jepma — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 15:43:09 +0000

For each Solutions Review Finds post, our site editors shop for the best products, sift through the reviews, measure the top sellers, and report back with our picks. Here are the best cameras for video marketing. Solutions Review participates in affiliate programs and may make a small commission from products purchased through this resource.

When crafting a successful marketing strategy, few things are as crucial as content. If the last several years have taught marketers anything, content is king. However, the form that content takes must continue evolving if it wants to remain competitive and compelling. That’s where video marketing comes into play.

According to research from Statista, nearly everyone over the age of 18 engages with online videos during the week, with over 20 percent of people saying they watch more than 10 hours a week. So if you want to take your marketing efforts to the next level, the video format might be the answer.

But shooting video on the phone—while appropriate for platforms like TikTok—won’t yield the production value most marketing audiences want. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the best cameras for video marketing.

The list below spotlights some of the best cameras marketers can (and should) use for their video marketing efforts and highlights the key features, strengths, and weaknesses. We’ve also included links to each camera’s product page, so you can further compare devices and find the best one for your video marketing needs.

NOW READ: The Best Video Marketing Courses Worth Taking

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What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Rubrik on July 20

Mike Costello — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 14:45:32 +0000

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Rubrik is entitled: See How University of Reading Safeguards Their Data with Rubrik.

What is a Solutions Spotlight?

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlights are exclusive webinar events for industry professionals across enterprise technology. Since its first virtual event in June 2020, Solutions Review has expanded its multimedia capabilities in response to the overwhelming demand for these kinds of events. Solutions Review’s current menu of online offerings includes the Demo Day, Solution Spotlight, best practices or case study webinars, and panel discussions. And the best part about the “Spotlight” series? They are free to attend!

Why You Should Attend

Solutions Review is one of the largest communities of IT executives, directors, and decision-makers across enterprise technology marketplaces. Every year over 10 million people come to Solutions Review’s collection of sites for the latest news, best practices, and insights into solving some of their most complex problems.

With the next Solutions Spotlight event, the team at Solutions Review has partnered with leading zero trust data security vendor Rubrik. The resource webinar will showcase how the immeasurable volumes of data in your Microsoft 365 environment are at risk. And now that Rubrik is partnered with Microsoft, its Microsoft 365 protection is even stronger.

Salvatore Buccoliero, Sales Engineer at Rubrik: Salvatore is a Senior SAAS & Security Sales Engineer who enjoys working with customers to secure enterprise data. Salvatore gets motivated by working with disruptive products and fast-growing organizations and has experience since the 2000’s in launching new vendors and distributing products.
Kevin Mortimer, Head of Operations at the University of Reading: Kevin, Head of Operations at University of Reading, has been a Rubrik customer since 2018. Kevin is a self-motivating, enthusiastic technologist at heart with a focus on service management. Innovative emerging technologies have always been a core value for infrastructure services.

About Rubrik

Rubrik is one of the most widely used enterprise data protection solutions in the world. Rubrik provides data protection and data management in hybrid IT environments. The platform is a scale-out-architecture-based data protection tool with cloud integration, live mount for Oracle databases, support for Office 365 backup, and support for SAP HANA backup. Rubrik‘s solution is recommended to buyers looking to protect highly virtualized on-prem environments and hybrid environments that leverage Microsoft Azure and AWS.

FAQ

What: See How University of Reading Safeguards Their Data with Rubrik
When: Thursday, July 20, 2023, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time
Where: Zoom meeting (see registration page for more detail)

Register for Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Rubrik FREE

The post What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Rubrik on July 20 appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Rubrik on July 20

Tim King — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 13:58:56 +0000

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Rubrik is entitled: See How University of Reading Safeguards Their Data with Rubrik.

What is a Solutions Spotlight?

Why You Should Attend

Salvatore Buccoliero, Sales Engineer at Rubrik: Salvatore is a Senior SAAS & Security Sales Engineer who enjoys working with customers to secure enterprise data. Salvatore gets motivated by working with disruptive products and fast-growing organizations and has experience since the 2000’s in launching new vendors and distributing products.
Kevin Mortimer, Head of Operations at the University of Reading: Kevin, Head of Operations at University of Reading, has been a Rubrik customer since 2018. Kevin is a self-motivating, enthusiastic technologist at heart with a focus on service management. Innovative emerging technologies have always been a core value for infrastructure services.

About Rubrik

FAQ

What: See How University of Reading Safeguards Their Data with Rubrik
When: Thursday, July 20, 2023, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time
Where: Zoom meeting (see registration page for more detail)

Register for Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Rubrik FREE

The post What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Rubrik on July 20 appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

10 of the Best AI Certification Programs for Business Managers

William Jepma — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 19:55:38 +0000

The editors at Solutions Review have compiled this list to spotlight some of the best AI certification programs that business professionals and managers should consider enrolling in. Solutions Review participates in affiliate programs. We may make a small commission from products purchased through this resource.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology continues to become a juggernaut presence in nearly every industry, there’s never been a better or more critical time to outfit yourself with an up-to-date understanding of the technology, how it works, why it works, and what it can do for your business. However, finding the best AI certification programs can be a challenge, especially considering how many there are to consider.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled this list of the best AI certification programs and training courses that business professionals and managers can take to improve their expertise, broaden their skills, stay on top of the newest emerging trends and tools in the AI landscape, and advance their careers.

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The Best AI Certification Programs for Business Managers

Course Title: AI for Business Leaders

OUR TAKE: This Executive Program will help business professionals master the foundations of AI technology to better and more strategically implement the technology into their company.

Platform: Udacity

Description: Business leaders who enroll in this in-depth training program will develop and fine-tune the foundational technical knowledge of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) they need to apply those concepts to companies across industries, drive corporate growth, maximize business efficiency, and enhance experiences. Alongside the program’s in-depth training materials and practical case studies, students will also be given a capstone project, where they will put their skills to the test and build an ML/AI-backed strategy that can be integrated into a business.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Artificial Intelligence Nanodegree

OUR TAKE: Expand your knowledge of fundamental AI algorithms and concepts by enrolling in this comprehensive Nanodegree Program taught by industry experts Peter Norvig, Sebastian Thrun, and Thad Starner.

Platform: Udacity

Description: This three-month certification program will introduce active and aspiring AI professionals to foundational concepts like optimization algorithms, pattern recognition, Bayes Networks, Hidden Markov Models, automated planning, and more. The course is taught by Peter Norvig, a Director of Research at Google; Thad Starner, the Contextual Computing Group (CCG) director at Georgia Tech; and Sebastian Thrun, the Founder of Udacity itself. Students can expect to complete the Nanodegree in approximately three months if they commit 12-15 hours to the program weekly.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Become an AI Product Manager

OUR TAKE: Learning to evaluate the business value of an AI product can be daunting, but this proven Nanodegree program can help you quickly equip yourself with the skills you need to get started.

Platform: Udacity

Description: Offered in collaboration with Appen, a machine intelligence company, this Nanodegree Program will teach students how to evaluate the business of AI products, build their familiarity with fundamental AI concepts, improve their ability to scope and develop a data set, and more. Some of the subjects and skills covered in the course include creating data sets, developing a business case for AI applications, building models with Google AutoML+, and evaluating the results of a model. The course ends with a capstone project where students develop a business proposal for an AI solution.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Become a Computer Vision Expert

OUR TAKE: With this program, you’ll learn to master various computer vision skills, write programs that analyze images, implement feature extraction, recognize objects using deep learning models, and more.

Platform: Udacity

Description: Professionals with experience using Python, statistics, machine learning, and deep learning can enroll in this course to kickstart their computer vision skills and expertise. Topics covered include object tracking, localization, SLAM, image processing essentials, neural networks, machine learning frameworks, statistical modeling, applying deep learning architectures to computer vision tasks, and building automatic image captioning applications. Business professionals new to the world of “deep learning” can also use Udacity’s Deep Learning Nanodegree Program to expedite their skills development.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Columbia Engineering Online Artificial Intelligence (AI) Program

OUR TAKE: If you’re looking for a comprehensive, rigorous training program, this eighteen-month program from Columbia University is for you.

Platform: edX

Description: Learn how to develop AI-powered systems, solutions, and services by enrolling in this in-depth executive education program. The non-credit, non-degree course focuses on providing learners with the insightful instruction, discussion, and peer collaboration they need to bolster their skills in a lasting, meaningful way. During the eighteen-month program, students will learn all about machine learning, algorithms, neural networks, deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, robotics, and more. Alongside the program’s various assessments, exercises, quizzes, and projects, the course also includes a three-day “immersion” on campus in New York City involving presentations, working sessions, and networking events.

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Course Title: Professional Certificate in Fundamentals of Google AI for Web-Based Machine Learning

OUR TAKE: Learn what artificial intelligence technology can do by enrolling in this course from some of Google’s AI experts.

Platform: edX

Description: Students that enroll in this self-paced certification course from Google will improve their familiarity with subjects and tools like machine learning, applied AI, the TensorFlow.js library AI programming, Linear Regression, Convolutional Neural Networks, object detection, natural language processing, and more. These insights will also help students learn how to write custom models from a black canvas, use industry-standard models for various services, convert Python models to the TensorFlow.js format, and see firsthand how ML, AI, and deep learning fit together.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Professional Certificate in Foundations of AI

OUR TAKE: Deepen your understanding of AI, its applications, use cases, and its effect on our lives by enrolling in this certification course from the experts at IBM.

Platform: edX

Description: This self-paced certification course is taught by Rav Ahuja, the Global Program Director of the IBM Skills Network, and Antonio Cangiano, a software developer and technical evangelist at IBM. During the course’s three-to-four-month program, students will learn what AI can do, how to get started with the technology by using the IBM Watson solution, and use Watson to build, analyze, deploy, and monetize chatbots. There are three courses included in the program, which all include hands-on interactions with various AI environments and applications.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Professional Certificate in Applied AI

OUR TAKE: This course acts as a more in-depth alternative to the “Foundations” program above, as it includes those three courses alongside three additional courses that go deeper into the world of AI technology.

Platform: edX

Description: For professionals looking for a proper deep-dive into AI technology, its use cases, and some of the tools available in the marketplace, this self-paced, three-to-six-month program fits the bill. Students will learn about the applications of tools like IBM’s Watson AI, Python, and OpenCV. Some of the skills students will put into practice include creating customer support chatbots, deploying speech-enabled virtual assistance to Facebook, creating interactive vision web applications, deploying those applications to the cloud, and continuing to explore concepts around machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, and more.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: Professional Certificate in Computer Science for Artificial Intelligence

OUR TAKE: Offered through Harvard University, this professional certificate will help equip you with a broad, thorough understanding of computer science, programming, and artificial intelligence applications.

Platform: edX

Description: Business professionals and aspiring software developers that complete this course from HarvardX will leave with a meaningful understanding of machine learning libraries, artificial intelligence principles, and the concepts that act as the foundation of modern artificial intelligence. The course uses a mixture of live lectures and lessons with hands-on projects to educate learners on the theories behind graph search algorithms, optimization, classification, reinforcement learning, standard programming languages like Python, and more.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

Course Title: CertNexus Certified Artificial Intelligence Practitioner Professional Certificate

OUR TAKE: With this five-course series, you can earn a career credential that demonstrates your AI expertise to prospective employers, increasing your chances of landing the job you want.

Platform: Coursera

Description: This program is geared toward intermediate-level professionals looking to master strategies for implementing AI, solving business problems, and demonstrating those skills to employers. Students will learn about the issues AI/ML can solve, how to identify the right technology for each issue, use ML algorithms, build multiple models to solve problems in a workflow, and explore some of the advanced algorithms used in machine learning and deep learning use cases. The course uses a flexible schedule that allows students to take the courses at their pace.

GO TO CERTIFICATION

NOW READ: The Top Training Courses for Business Process Managers

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ChatGPT, DALL-E, and the Future of AI-Based Identity Fraud

Avidan Lamdan — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 18:32:55 +0000

Solutions Review’s Expert Insights Series is a collection of contributed articles written by industry experts in enterprise software categories. Avidan Lamdan of AU10TIX looks at the current state of identity fraud, AI tech, and the ever-evolving future of AI-based identity fraud.

As artificial intelligence advances, it’s taking on an ability to mimic humans in amazing ways. While the potential for positive impact is enormous, it also poses a risk for malicious use, particularly in the realm of synthetic identity fraud. This type of fraud involves bad actors using a combination of real and fake information to create a new identity, and can be perpetrated using deepfakes — artificially created media such as videos or images that are so convincing they appear to be real — and other forms of AI-generated identity fraud.

The examples are already prevalent. A group of fraudsters claimed to be the CEO of an energy company based in the United Kingdom and coerced an amount of $243,000. Similarly, in the early months of 2020, a bank manager in Hong Kong was deceived into transferring a large sum of money by an individual who used voice-cloning technology. Furthermore, this year, several elderly individuals in Canada were victims of a voice-cloning scam and lost approximately $200,000 collectively.

While current ID verification solutions are effective against more established forms of identity fraud, they may not be equipped to tackle the newer generative AI-based threats. In this article, we will explore how AI technologies and large neural networks like ChatGPT and DALL-E are being exploited through deception. We will also discuss the emerging technologies that can help address this challenge.

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AI-Based Identity Fraud: Now and in the Future

The increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence is escalating the risk of identity fraud. Criminals can now use AI to create convincing forgeries of documents such as IDs and passports. While such counterfeits historically required manual labor, AI makes it easier and more scalable to automatically create synthetic documents that look real. For instance, AI-generated deepfakes can be used to create false identities that are nearly impossible to distinguish from real ones. Moreover, large neural networks can create highly realistic text and images for use in fake IDs and other documents. This has serious implications for both organizations and individuals, including identity theft, financial fraud, and other criminal activities.

To combat this threat, there is a need for increased awareness and education on the dangers of AI-generated identity fraud. Companies and governments must invest in cutting-edge tools to detect and prevent fraudulent activities. They should also implement multi-factor authentication and other security measures to make it more difficult to create fake identities.

Consequences and Challenges

The consequences of synthetic identity fraud can be devastating. Individuals may suffer financial loss, reputational damage, and even legal troubles if their identity is stolen and used for criminal activities. Organizations face the same repercussions if they fail to detect fraudulent activities. Therefore, it is critical to invest in effective prevention measures to protect against AI-generated identity fraud.

To be clear, there is reason for hope. AI-based document forgery is not easy and may require adaptation of models for specific purposes. Criminals want to do as little work as possible, and as long as traditional tools like Photoshop are working, they may see no reason to spend time and effort on AI. However, as the technology continues to advance, it will likely become easier and more accessible for scammers to exploit.

Emerging Technologies and the Cat-and-Mouse Game

Identity verification technology has become increasingly important for fraud detection. Many companies are already using AI-based document analysis, which involves extracting and verifying data from passports, driver’s licenses and other forms of ID. Verified credentials and digital IDs are also cutting-edge tools that can be used to combat synthetic identity fraud. However, even these advanced technologies may not be enough to detect the most sophisticated types of fraud, like deepfakes. Advanced methods such as liveness testing are required. This involves requiring a person to perform specific actions or movements to prove they are physically present and not just a recorded image.

Detecting the most sophisticated deepfakes may also require tracking the injection of content such as fabricated or manipulated media, and then analyzing the connection between devices or the content itself. This involves looking for clues such as metadata, timestamps, and network data that can help identify the source of the content and how it was created. The fight against identity fraud is ongoing, with criminals constantly trying to outsmart detection measures at the same time tech vendors are working to defeat the bad actors. Unfortunately, the criminals only have to be successful once, while fraud detection must be successful every time.

The Future of Identity Fraud Prevention

The future of identity fraud prevention may lie in the use of verifiable credentials (VCs). VCs are digital documents that contain information about an individual’s identity that can be verified by authorized parties without the need for a central authority or database. They enable individuals to maintain control over their personal information and prevent bad actors from accessing it. They can also choose which information to share with each verifier, eliminating the need to disclose unnecessary personal data.

As AI continues to advance, so too must our efforts to prevent its successful use by identity thieves. By embracing emerging technologies and collaborating across industries, we can stay ahead of scammers and protect individuals’ identities and personal information.

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What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Alteryx on July 27

Tim King — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:50:16 +0000

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Alteryx is entitled: Achieving Meaningful Business Impact with AI, ML & Analytics.

What is a Solutions Spotlight?

Why You Should Attend

With the next Solutions Spotlight event, the team at Solutions Review has partnered with leading analytics, data science, and automation vendor Alteryx. Through case studies and practical examples, Alteryx’s Field Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Heather Harris, will help you learn the keys to capturing the business impact or your analytic solutions.

Speakers

Heather Harris, Field Chief Data & Analytics Officer

About Alteryx

Alteryx powers analytics for all with the award-winning Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform. With Alteryx, enterprises can make intelligent decisions across their organizations with automated, AI-driven insights. More than 8,300 customers globally rely on Alteryx to democratize analytics across use cases and deliver high-impact business outcomes. Alteryx AiDIN is the industry’s first engine that combines the power of AI, machine learning, and generative AI with the Alteryx Analytics Cloud Platform to accelerate analytics efficiency and productivity.

FAQ

What: Achieving Meaningful Business Impact with AI, ML & Analytics
When: Thursday, July 27, 2023, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time
Where: Zoom meeting (see registration page for more detail)

Register for Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Alteryx FREE

The post What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight with Alteryx on July 27 appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

The Value of Observability in an Enterprise

Isaac Rousso — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 20:03:53 +0000

More and more, an essential requirement for managing IT operations in today’s complex digital enterprises is the availability of high-quality monitoring data, programmatic analysis, incident correlation and systematic response formulation. This is where observability comes into play.

Research shows that by 2026, seventy percent of organizations that successfully applied observability will achieve shorter latency for decision making, enabling competitive advantage for target business or IT processes.

What is Observability?

Observability is the ability to gain insight into the internal workings of a system and business processes by analyzing operational data from its outputs and then correlating insights. Observability in an enterprise is important because it allows developers and IT teams to quickly detect and diagnose issues and make improvements – through programmatic corrective measures, to the system over time. Ninety one percent of IT decision makers see observability as critical at every stage of the software lifecycle, citing the biggest benefits to planning and operations.

Essential to observability are three types of data, referred to as “three pillars”:

Logs are files that keep track of events, warnings, and errors as they occur within a software environment. Most logs include contextual information, such as the time an event occurred.
Metrics are quantifiable measurements that allow organizations to keep track of the overall health and performance of applications.
Traces track a request or action as it moves through the different parts of a distributed system.

Having access to these pillars might not make systems more observable, but the analysis and pattern correlation of the data offers powerful tools that, if understood well and done correctly, can open the door to build stronger and more resilient systems across the technology business landscape, and can adopt a culture to drive a highly effective observability capability.

Monitoring vs. Observability

Monitoring is the continuous observation and measurement of a system or application to ensure that it is performing as expected. This includes collecting data on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as response time, error rates, and throughput, and alerting business and IT teams when these metrics fall outside of desired ranges. Monitoring is important because it provides visibility to operating anomalies in business and IT systems. With this awareness, teams ensure that systems are always up and running, and that any issues are identified and resolved before they have an impact across the business ecosystem(s).

However, monitoring does not explain why a system is not working properly. It provides transparency to situations and system characteristics that are foreseen in advance (known knowns). Without this complete overview, it is impossible to find the exact root cause since there might be several hundreds, or even thousands, of processes in place. It is also not sufficient to measure performance since it won’t measure a business or system operation from end to end.

On the contrary, observability goes the extra mile and enables the identification of the “unknown unknowns.” Utilizing the three types of data, it anticipates failures before they occur by analyzing trends and patterns and alerting teams before failures occur, proactively recommends actions (the next best step) ahead of failures using advanced analysis, and initiates “self-healing” capabilities for tasks that can be performed based on regular previously observed and corrected events. Additionally, observability provides insights and early warnings to events and failures in business processes that may be early warnings to a system or other underlying conditions.

These observability behaviors can occur to mitigate multiple types of anomalies and conditions, which lead us to multiple types of observability:

Digital Experience is aimed at verifying the desired digital experience for the customer, employee, and partner and can be achieved relying on pre-production testing and production monitoring.
Business is monitoring and collecting data pertaining to business activities, such as business transaction monitoring, business KPI monitoring, business activity anomalies, and process monitoring.
Process is targeted at monitoring for process anomalies that could impact some aspect of business execution, which includes monitoring the various systems utilized in the execution of a business process or sub-process.
Application relies on the three types of data, which are metrics, logs and traces pertaining to the “current” health of an application. This type anticipates and mitigates potential disruption in a business application that could impact the performance of business activity.
Data is the type that is concerned about eliminating data downtime and marshalling real time response to data anomalies at the point of data processing. This includes data reliability, systematic identification of data quality and data integrity issues.
Security is aimed at threat detection, isolation and response and includes monitoring for different types of threats across the ‘attack surface area’. This includes monitoring potential access points but also business information. Securing confidential and sensitive data is not only critical for business, but also for meeting regulatory or compliance requirements.
Infrastructure relies on the three types of data, which are metrics, logs and traces collected via monitoring mechanisms and includes recognizing server and serverless anomalies that may impact the health of running infrastructure services.

All in all, monitoring can also assist in managing, but observability allows you to organize data and applications, providing even more clarity into your environment. Together, observability and monitoring provide IT teams with the visibility and insights they need to manage complex digital ecosystems and ensure that they are always performing at their best, end to end.

How to Gain Observability Success

To help an enterprise succeed in their observability initiatives, below are important objectives that leaders should take into consideration:

Predict and proactively resolve issues before they occur
Monitor on prem and cloud services
Minimize response time through programmatic response
Respond as incidents occur or are identified
Adopt industry standards to drive adoption of observability practices across the system landscape
Instrument applications based on a “Code for monitoring” principle
Simplify the technical landscape to aid in responsiveness
Develop a data strategy to facilitate collection, management, and analysis of operational data

Observability is more than simply a fancy name for monitoring. As enterprises step into a more decentralized IT operating platform, it’s clear that observability is becoming a fundamental necessity. Without the capability to combine and analyze the data across the operating platform(s), issues may arise ranging from incomplete application performance to major security problems. For organizations to succeed, it will be critical for them to implement an observability platform of robust monitoring, systematic correlation analysis and programmatic response to differentiate themselves from their competitors and perform in a highly dynamic and complex digital world.

The post The Value of Observability in an Enterprise appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

Beyond the App: Why NPM is Key to Unlocking User Satisfaction

Pavel Minarik — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 18:34:26 +0000

Solutions Review’s Expert Insights Series is a collection of contributed articles written by industry experts in enterprise software categories. Pavel Minarik of Progress looks beyond simple appsec and network monitoring, and into why NPM is the key to unlocking user satisfaction.

Applications are crucial to the success of every modern business. Whether it’s an online store that grinds to a halt when its website is down or a hospital where doctors need to access digitized patient records before conducting surgery, organizations rely on applications to function. However, when users report slow application response times or outages occur, this can have a paralyzing effect on the entire organization. Recent surveys estimate that the average minute of downtime costs $4,500, with an average outage lasting between 20-60 minutes. Unfortunately, finding the root cause of these issues can be time-consuming, often hindered by IT professionals playing the blame game.

To the user, an application is simply a website or an app that they expect to work. However, for IT professionals, applications consist of various components, including infrastructure, networking, server architecture, application code, databases, and storage. Typically, two to five different teams are responsible for managing these components and ensuring their smooth operation. Regardless of which team handles resolving application experience (AX) and user experience (UX) issues, the network is the interconnecting element that can reveal the root cause and help solve it before the impact becomes irreversible.

One way that companies can tackle this is by deploying network performance monitoring (NPM) technologies. NPM provides insight into the user and application experience, separates the network delay from application delay, and helps IT follow performance-related service level agreements (SLAs).

In the market for network monitoring solutions? Check out our free Solutions Buyer’s Guide!

NPM: The Key to User Satisfaction

What Is NPM?

Application-aware network performance monitoring (AA-NPM, or NPM for short) is crucial for understanding how fast your apps are running and identifying substandard ones that need to be perfected. Knowing whether your customer-facing apps are slow is especially important to ensure customer satisfaction. NPM measures response times not only for the network but also for databases and the application, separating the network delay from application delay and providing IT with the root cause of performance issues.

An NPM solution can monitor all modern web-based applications. It measures the transport time of the request from a user to the application and tracks the delay. In case of application errors, NPM supplies detailed information, including transaction error, time stamp, user identification, and information about the transaction. Troubleshooting the application is made easy as IT can drill down into the transaction and get general information about the response time, defined SLA, and username. The NPM solution can help identify the problem, which will restore application performance once resolved.

Loss of Productivity Caused by Poor Internet Speed

Suppose users have reported experiencing slow network speeds with websites taking an excessively long time to load. Additionally, remote users are unable to connect to local systems. With a Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) solution, the administrator can promptly verify internet bandwidth utilization by comparing the volume of data transfers to the available capacity. Histograms provide insight into long-term trends.

NPM presents data in a structured manner and facilitates search and filtering based on various data attributes, such as source and destination IP, AS number (autonomous system), protocols, ports, and more. Upon investigating the bandwidth consumption and limiting other users’ activities, the IT team discovered that large amounts of data were being downloaded from an Akamai data center. This indicated that Windows updates were being downloaded from an external source instead of a local server. Next, the administrator found the devices responsible for these downloads and resolved the issue by making a simple configuration change.

The administrator troubleshot the cause of the incident in three clicks and reduced mean time to resolve (MTTR) from an average of 20-60 minutes to 10 minutes. Given that the average outage costs $4,500 per minute (for a 2,500-5,000-employee company), the total savings are $225,000.

Health Insurance Client Portal Speed User Complaints

IT support has been receiving complaints from users regarding application slowness, and some users are even encountering errors. NPM solutions enable the measurement of response times and delays for each user-to-app transaction, supplying aggregated results for simplified analysis. The administrator can sort all transactions within a given period, arranging the list from slowest to fastest.

This analysis reveals that when users access the Payments List page, their average wait time exceeds 24 seconds. Similarly, when users land on the homepage, their average wait time exceeds seven seconds. Ideally, loading a website should not take more than one to two seconds. When investigating network transport time (the time it takes for the data to be transferred over the network to the client) compared to application response time (the time it takes the application to resolve the user request) per individual transactions, it is immediately apparent that the root cause is the application. Developers then know exactly where to focus their interests. There is no ambiguity that leaves space for speculation or the blame game.

The Benefits of NPM to Organizations and Their Customers

In conclusion, network performance monitoring is crucial to ensuring the optimal performance of applications and user experience. The ability to quickly find and resolve issues can save an organization a significant amount of money and prevent reputational damage. With the right NPM solutions, IT professionals can gain insight into the network, databases, and application response times to pinpoint the root cause of performance issues. By adopting NPM, organizations can improve their overall application performance and user experience, ultimately leading to greater customer satisfaction and business success.

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What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight Webinar with Zscaler on July 13

Tim King — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 20:24:27 +0000

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler and Banner Health is entitled: Learn How Banner Health Ensures Seamless Digital Experiences.

What is a Solution Spotlight?

Why You Should Attend

With the next Solution Spotlight event, the team at Solutions Review has partnered with Zscaler and Banner Health to provide viewers with a unique webinar called Learn How Banner Health Ensures Seamless Digital Experiences.

Speakers

Krishnan Badrinarayanan, Senior Director, Product Marketing at Zscaler: Krishnan Badrinarayanan is a member of the Zscaler Digital Experience product team focused on helping IT teams deliver flawless digital experiences that power their businesses. Skilled in the SaaS and enterprise software space, he has over 18 years of experience in security and previously worked at Abnormal Security, Riverbed Technologies, and Dynatrace.

Koby Caputo, Cybersecurity Engineer, Data Protection at Banner Health: Koby Caputo is a Cybersecurity Data Protection and Network Security Engineer for one of the largest US based Non-Profit Healthcare organizations with 65,000 + employees. He has experience with endpoint protection, proxy, firewall, email security, edge routing and switching, and Data Loss Prevention. Koby has facilitated 3 critical cybersecurity infrastructure rip and replace projects; the most recent being a complete transition from a legacy proxy to Zscaler ZIA and ZDX in less than 3 months.

About Zscaler

Zscaler is a cloud security company, with headquarters in San Jose, California. The company offers enterprise cloud security services. Their cloud native Zero Trust Exchange platform protects thousands of customers from cyberattacks and data loss by securely connecting users, devices, and applications in any location. Using zero trust principles, Zscaler helps IT move away from legacy network infrastructure to achieve modern workplace enablement, infrastructure modernization, and security transformation.

About Banner Health

Banner Health is one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in the country. The system owns and operates 30 acute-care hospitals and a number of other healthcare entities. Banner Health’s mission is to make health care easier, so life can be better. The organization provides emergency and hospital care, hospice, long-term/home care, outpatient surgery, labs, rehabilitation services, pharmacies, and primary care. In early 2018, it reported assets of $11.6 billion and revenues of $7.8 billion for the previous year.

FAQ

What: Learn How Banner Health Ensures Seamless Digital Experiences
When: Thursday, July 13, 2023 at 12:00 PM EST
Where: Zoom meeting (see registration page for more detail)

Register for Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler & Banner Health FREE

The post What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Spotlight Webinar with Zscaler on July 13 appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler and Banner Health on September 19th

Mike Costello — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 17:48:05 +0000

Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler and Banner Health is entitled: Learn How Banner Health Ensures Seamless Digital Experiences.

What is a Solution Spotlight?

Why You Should Attend

Speakers

About Zscaler

About Banner Health

FAQ

What: Learn How Banner Health Ensures Seamless Digital Experiences
When: Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at 12:00 PM EST
Where: Zoom meeting (see registration page for more detail)

Register for Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler and Banner Health FREE

The post What to Expect at Solutions Review’s Solution Spotlight with Zscaler and Banner Health on September 19th appeared first on Solutions Review Technology News and Vendor Reviews.

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