FEATURE: NETWORKS AND SECURITY can be prohibitive, particularly for small to mid-sized enterprises particularly for smaller organisations.
It often results in incomplete implementations or continued reliance on outdated systems.
AI and Generative AI reduce NOC and SOC workloads in converged network and security platforms by automating key tasks. AI enables real-time threat detection, automated incident response, and false positive reduction, cutting manual triage time. It unifies monitoring across networks, endpoints, and cloud, enhancing visibility. AI automates policy creation and compliance checks, minimising misconfigurations.
Chalan Aras, SVP and GM of Acceleration, Riverbed
AI and Generative AI are streamlining operations for NOC and SOC administrators by rapidly diagnosing issues that traditionally required manual investigation. These technologies excel at identifying patterns and anomalies across vast datasets, effectively finding the needle in a haystack to pinpoint root causes faster.
Managing converged network and security platforms like SASE, Zero Trust, and XDR demands a diverse skill set spanning networking, cybersecurity, cloud technologies, AI-driven analytics, automation, policy management, and observability. These competencies help IT teams tackle integration challenges, ensure compliance, improve visibility, and optimise operations.
Proficiency in areas such as SD-WAN, threat detection, cloud security, and automation are essential for securing and scaling hybrid, cloudfirst environments. Building these skills enables organisations to maintain robust, efficient, and compliant infrastructures in increasingly complex and dynamic digital landscapes.
When paired with automation, AI doesn’ t just detect problems, it also initiates remediation actions in real-time, reducing incident response times and minimising manual intervention.
This convergence of intelligence and automation eases the operational burden on IT teams, enabling them to shift focus from routine troubleshooting to higher-value strategic tasks and proactive threat prevention.
As network and security platforms continue to converge, IT professionals with foundational knowledge of core networking concepts remain in high demand.
At the same time, the growing complexity of modern IT environments is driving a need for talent that
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