The Great Technology Stack Pivot: From Pyramid to Network Architecture

Christine Boles and Ram Ramasamy stoke up the flames once more for their third fireside chat focusing on various areas of technology innovation. Their conversation dives into the pivot from a layered architecture to a network architecture driven by digitalization, IoT, and the fourth industrial revolution.

Several factors at play during the pandemic accelerated the pace of manufacturing transformation. Data centricity, a tremendous need for reliable demand forecasting, workforce gaps, and acute supply chain pressures across industries combine to create this evolution in the technology stack from now into the next dozen years.

“Simplification of the technology stack is a real trend we’re observing,” Ramasamy says. “But what we’re also observing, as a dichotomy, is that manufacturing organizations are at a crossroads today. They need to transform, but the journey is very unclear.”

The edge computing revolution is creating the pivot from layered to network architecture. So, what is critical and core to this technology stack journey that will help customers drive towards simplification?

According to Christine Boles, companies must move towards network architecture to properly use generated data. She says, “My team and I often refer to this as software-defined.” Software-defined infrastructures require little human intervention and allow workloads to be managed in such a way that critical IT functions are fully integrated, automated, and optimized for convergence with OT. “And as that occurs, [you] can bring the AI capability [to] that data…take the insights, and ultimately bring [intelligence] forward.”

Another tool that will help bring these technologies forward is 5G. The low latency wireless capabilities of 5G will aid layered architecture across the network, allow more access to the generated data distributed across operations, and bring AI capabilities to the next level.

Learn more about the great technology stack pivot by connecting with Christine Boles and Ram Ramasamy on LinkedIn or visit:

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