The IT pro’s job today is significantly more difficult than it was just a few years ago. IT complexity has grown disproportionately, even as we’ve seen slower budget and staffing increases. At the same time, digital transformation projects need staff time.
Many technology vendors have used artificial intelligence to transform their products. This is evident in areas like unified communications, contact centers and cybersecurity.
Yet one area of IT that has yet to see AI play a significant impact is the network. AI has been used to improve basic management functions but has yet to transform network operations.
At its recent Zenith Live event, security services edge (SSE) market leader Zscaler released several new capabilities in its security platform designed for organizations that want to adopt zero trust in the cloud and manage risk from cyberthreats. The news comes as Zscaler also expands its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide a unified solution for organizations moving to the cloud.
Arizona-based Liveops is a contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider that provides agent services for several industries, including insurance, retail and health services. The company was launched 20 years ago in the gig economy and maintains a large work-from-home workforce with more than 25,000 independent agents who provide contact center services to businesses of all sizes. The company has grown rapidly and provides services to many name brand companies across the US.
Palo Alto Networks has announced what it calls Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) 2.0, which shifts the focus of ZTNA from the network to the application layer.
Implementing zero trust has been top of mind for security pros for the past couple of years. Pre-pandemic, the topic had been gaining momentum, but interest in it exploded as work from home increased, applications moved to the cloud and the IT environment got more complex. In many cases, networks became too complicated to secure with traditional tools.