Many of us will continue to work from home even as offices begin to open again. A recent survey by TBR found that 55 percent of roles will continue to be remote at least part of the time through 2022 and beyond. Another survey cited in this Frost & Sullivan report says that up to 96% of employees who can work remotely would like to do so, whether full time or part time.
Although you may enjoy a commute that’s measured in feet instead of miles, chances are that your IT department is not as happy. Why? They can’t provide help for what they can’t see. If they can’t get true visibility into home networks, or any network outside the traditional enterprise network, their ability to help with connection and application access problems for remote employees is very limited.
The distributed edge is gaining millions of connected devices. These include work-from-home devices as well as IoT devices, point-of-sale systems, barcode scanners and much more. These devices are designed to be cloud- and wireless-first, and they often access applications in the cloud and over wireless networks. As the client device traverses multiple vantage points, IT needs clear visibility into the client experience. Traditional network monitoring tools tend to be siloed or single-purpose. They can’t provide a cohesive view of the client to container to application journey.
Enter AIOps
AIOps applies artificial intelligence to network operations, to better understand and react to a more diverse, dynamic edge. VMware Edge Network Intelligence™ is a vendor-agnostic AIOps solution that focuses on client experience when end users and IoT devices access cloud applications from any location. It uses machine learning (ML) and big data analytics to ensure that end-user and IoT devices at the edge of the distributed enterprise can access applications in the cloud with consistent performance and strong security.
To do this, VMware Edge Network Intelligence collects data from a wide range of sources across an extended environment, including:
- The wireless and wired LAN, the first point of access for edge devices getting on the network
- Network services like DHCP and DNS
- SD-WAN, including inline collection based on integration with VMware SD-WAN Edge
- Applications, via prebuilt integrations with Zoom, Citrix, Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and other critical enterprise applications
With true visibility into networks, IT can now answer questions they could not answer before. An employee keeps getting dropped from webinars: Is it poor Wi-Fi at their location? Is it their home network provider? Is it the application? VMware Edge Network Intelligence allows IT to quickly identify and resolve client issues, instead of spending time on root cause analysis. This also frees IT staff to work on projects that are more strategic for the business.
Zoom integration for better video calls
VMware Edge Network Intelligence gets data from Zoom API integration to provide deeper visibility into the end user experience. IT can deliver a great Zoom experience with deep insights across multiple fault domains. When corporate IT staff can see the true root cause of home workers’ dropped or jittery calls and help fix the problem, end user satisfaction – and productivity – rise.
An optional client application (see the screenshot) can be installed on end users’ laptops and mobile devices. The client application provides additional data for IT, and also gives home-based workers a tool to troubleshoot issues that are within their control. We took a closer look at how VMware Edge Network Intelligence and Zoom work together in a blog post.
Register for the webinar
Register for our webinar “VMware Edge Network Intelligence for the Anywhere Workforce” and learn how IT can use AIOps to help work-from-anywhere users.
Sign up for our live online event, April 20 at 10:00 am Pacific time, or view it on demand.
Learn more
- Take a deeper dive into VMware Edge Network Intelligence in our blog series. The second blog in the series discusses security and efficiency for branch offices, including home offices.
- Read the solution overview for VMware Edge Network Intelligence.
