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Stay up to date on the latest IT and data management information from EMA, including Webinars, Radar Reports, white papers, impact briefs, advisory notes and more! Select your preferred reader by selecting an icon on the right. Current Feed Content:Automation, AI, and the Rise of ServiceOpsPUBLISHED: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell ServiceOps is a smart way for IT service and IT operations teams to work together to deliver and maintain excellence in IT service. Enabled by technologies such as automation and AI, ServiceOps is a vendor-neutral approach to IT management that cuts waste and cost, increases IT personnel productivity and efficiency, and improves IT service quality, as well as the experience of its users.
AIOps now: doing more with less and doing it betterPUBLISHED: Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell IT organizations are not strangers to change. It raged fast and furious over the past few years. Acceleration of planned digital transformation initiatives executed alongside unplanned adaptations to global realities that almost no one saw coming. Thanks largely to swift—and even heroic—actions by IT, most organizations not only survived, but improved. That collective breath of relief was short-lived. Today, geopolitical forces of war and the economic ambiguity of uncertain times combine to drive many enterprises into tried-and-true belt-tightening measures.
Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future Aviatrix SummaryPUBLISHED: Wed, 22 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the summary report for EMA's "Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future" research report, sponsored by Aviatrix. Observability 2.0: Smart Observability to Connect Business and DevOpsPUBLISHED: Wed, 15 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk New code releases, new database queries, infrastructure upgrades, and configuration changes need to be evaluated by their business impact. There is no value in the most elegant code functions or the most streamlined and automated CI/CD pipelines if the resulting new capabilities do not “move the needle” for the business.
API Security: Debunking the MythsPUBLISHED: Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Enterprises are finally starting to pay attention to application security as theoretical threats to their application infrastructure become reality. For years, security vendors have discussed DevSecOps solutions and the benefits they bring to the mature enterprise, but forecasted attacks on APIs and infrastructure as code (IaC) have put application security in the spotlight.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 23 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) finalized its TLS 1.3 standard for network encryption in 2018, backed by heavy promotion of the new standard from the major web server and browser vendors. Back then, the new 10-year-in-the-making standard promised better privacy. However, it also threatened to break how IT networking and security professionals troubleshoot networking problems and monitor the presence of malware and malicious actors operating within those networks.
Network Observability: Delivering Actionable Insights to Network Operations SummaryPUBLISHED: Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the summary for EMA's Network Observability report, sponsored by Broadcom. 2023 EMA Vendors to Watch: Network ManagementPUBLISHED: Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy EMA "Vendors to Watch" are companies that deliver unique customer value by solving problems that previously went unaddressed, or provide value in innovative ways. The designation rewards vendors that dare to go off the beaten path and have defined their own market niches. This document contains the 2023 EMA Vendors to Watch in the network management field, including Augtera and Lytn. Build or Buy? Self-Service DevOps Platform EngineeringPUBLISHED: Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Traditional information security practices used to be relatively easy to perform compared to those needed in today’s world of microservices and the public cloud. Security professionals mitigated most attacks traditionally at the centralized network firewall level. If that failed, the end host firewall could act as a safety net for attacks that slipped through. On-premises applications ran on local dedicated servers or in virtual machines hosted in corporate data centers—you didn’t need to worry about configuring distributed access rules because the entire local network could be trusted.
Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future Nefeli Networks SummaryPUBLISHED: Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the summary report for EMA's "Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future" research report, sponsored by Nefeli Networks. Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the FuturePUBLISHED: Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Today’s enterprises are increasingly using multiple cloud providers for a variety of reasons. This market research from Enterprise Management Associates explores how enterprises are addressing the networking requirements of their multi-cloud architectures. It explores pain points, technology requirements, and operational strategies for multi-cloud networks.
Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future Research SummaryPUBLISHED: Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the summary for EMA's research report, "Multi-Cloud Networking: Connecting and Securing the Future." The business view of cross-functional workflow and IT automationPUBLISHED: Tue, 24 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell IT automation is either a competitive advantage or a competitive gap. The difference is in adoption and execution. After all, if one company can operate faster and more efficiently than another, they have an advantage in execution and margin over their less automated peers. That gap is clearly visible in the response of 400+ global IT leaders EMA asked to estimate the percentage of IT tasks that use automation.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen From 2015 to 2021, the number of new vulnerabilities per year in the National Vulnerability Database grew from 6,487 to 20,139. This increase in vulnerabilities may be due to a significant skills gap when it comes to secure software development. In 2019, a review of the top 20 computer science schools found that of the schools listed, only one had security as an undergraduate degree requirement for Computer Science. Simply put, software developers are not being taught secure coding practices at colleges and universities, and with a significant number of organizations failing to invest in any secure coding training whatsoever, even some of the most seasoned developers in the industry may have little to no awareness of secure coding concepts.
How to Succeed with Load Balancing in a Hybrid Multi-Cloud WorldPUBLISHED: Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This report, prepared for Progress Software, explores how IT organizations are evolving their approach to load balancing and application delivery controllers to support hybrid cloud and multi-cloud. The research findings are based on a July 2022 survey of 152 North American IT professionals involved in their organization’s data center and cloud load balancing strategies.
IT process automation: where business and technology meetPUBLISHED: Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Today’s IT environments are pervasively hybrid, increasingly complex, and in a constant state of change. As new technologies take hold, IT responds with new tools. The resultant islands of specialized management and automation add another layer of complexity to the everexpanding IT estate. IT operations teams need to automate cross-domain workflows and processes to avoid drowning in a sea of mundane tasks and increased costs.
Driving Operational Efficiencies Through Network Performance and Security CollaborationPUBLISHED: Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Multi-cloud architecture, hybrid work, the Internet of Things, and other technology initiatives are adding complexity to the enterprise network. This complexity challenges the network team’s ability to manage performance and the security team’s ability to protect the business. Network and security teams are responding to these challenges by collaborating and converging.
Modern ITAM in the digitally transformed enterprisePUBLISHED: Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell IT asset data and information accuracy is foundational to excellence in the delivery of business-driven IT service. That fact is magnified in environments that are pervasively hybrid, increasingly complex, and in a constant state of change.
PUBLISHED: Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Organizations continue to prioritize security and security spending, but that spending is often at odds with a more pressing business priority: regulatory compliance. Regardless of the industry vertical, all businesses are required to deal with a certain amount of regulatory compliance or vendor due diligence. For technology leaders, the best solution is to partner with compliance/risk/governance teams to address compliance control gaps while advancing the company’s security priorities.
PUBLISHED: Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Google “cost of an IT outage” or any of its variants. The result will be a cascade of links proclaiming some version of, “According to Gartner, the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute.” Like an old family legend passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, industry pundits have been using the figure of $5,600/minute for the average cost of an IT outage since 2014. Cited as gospel, the figure has gone largely unchallenged—though Ponemon Institute is sometimes credited with raising Gartner’s ante to $9,000/minute. Upon closer inspection, it appears that the iconic $5,600/minute figure is an urban legend.
Global Workload Automation Market Size and Forecast: 2022 to 2027PUBLISHED: Tue, 15 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Dan Twing EMA has been covering the workload automation market since 2009. The “EMA WLA Radar Report” is published every two years, and this analysis is rooted in the products, support, and services of the vendors in the workload automation market, with only minor attention to the vendor’s size or market share. As attention in WLA has risen, so have the requests for EMA to do a market sizing report. The increasing attention in the WLA market is a result of innovation and growth as WLA has been key to supporting several IT trends, including big data, digital transformation, and the migration of legacy production workloads to the cloud. Also raising interest in WLA is the drive to apply automation across the enterprise—a trend that increased with the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation.
The Rise of Low-Friction Access: Emerging Requirements and Solutions for Boosting Workforce Productivity and Security AssurancePUBLISHED: Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen Driven by accelerating IT security threats, increased requirements to support remote workforces, the introduction of zero trust initiatives, and evolving user expectations on technology performance, organizations are broadly introducing new requirements for identity security. To provide businesses with actionable guidance on identifying the optimal path to streamlining authentication processes, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) conducted primary research with the goal of identifying current requirements, challenges, and adopted solutions in relation to mitigating access friction.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen This is the summary report for EMA's Radar for Digital Employee Experience Management. PUBLISHED: Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen This is Applixure's vendor profile summary from the EMA Digital Employee Experience Management Radar Report. PUBLISHED: Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen This is Alluvio Aternity's vendor profile summary from the EMA Digital Employee Experience Management Radar Report. PUBLISHED: Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen All modern businesses are dependent on digital technologies to drive workforce productivity to achieve company performance and financial success. The principles of digital transformation and modern management postulate that digital technologies should principally support user-centric requirements and preferences to maximize business productivity. However, traditional IT management tools are not designed to fully gauge and respond to user experiences issues. Digital experience management (DEX) solutions emerged in recent years to directly address this service delivery gap. Related solutions collect comprehensive contextual information on user interactions with digital technologies, analyze the data to quantify user experiences, and provide support for remediating any deficiencies. This Enterprise Management Associates® (EMA™) Radar Report identifies the 12 leading DEX solution providers—including 1E, Applixure, Catchpoint, Cisco, ControlUp, Datadog, Dynatrace, Lakeside, Martello, Nexthink, Qualtrics, Alluvio Aternity, and VMware—and empirically compares and grades their offered solutions against a broad range of measurements to determine overall product strengths and cost-efficiencies.
Driving Observability Through Machine Learning and Predictive AnalyticsPUBLISHED: Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner Analytics used in business decisions is nothing new. However, the need for real-time, reliable data is increasing and is a necessity to remain competitive in today’s business landscape. In addition, observability has been around for some time. However, observability has become even more critical with the complexity of a hybrid, multi-cloud environment. To add to the challenges and complexity, the term “observability” has not been clearly defined and can be broad in context.
The State of Data Center Networking: 2022 Annual ReportPUBLISHED: Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This second annual edition of “The State of Data Center Networking” reveals that on-premises data centers and private cloud remain essential core components of a hybrid, multi-cloud strategy with high-availability applications. To ensure that private infrastructure serves the needs of a digital enterprise, network teams must modernize their data center networks. This research shows how companies are achieving this goal with network overlay fabrics and network automation. It also explores the challenges they encounter on their journey to a hybrid, multi-cloud future.
ITAM accuracy: a foundation for business effectivenessPUBLISHED: Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Device42 recently co-sponsored independent field research on the changing shape of modern ITAM in the days of digital transformation in a work-from-anywhere world. Research analyst firm Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) conducted in-depth analysis of insights from 300 IT leaders in North America, EMEA, and APAC. The participants represented companies across industries, 70% of which were in the 1,000-10,000 employee range.
Network Observability: Delivering Actionable Insights to Network OperationsPUBLISHED: Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy The tools that enterprises use to monitor and manage their networks are under a harsh spotlight today. Network operations teams are struggling to maintain visibility in a rapidly changing digital world. In fact, the number of network operations teams that are successful with their overall missions has declined from 47% in 2018 to 27% in 2022, according to EMA’s Network Management Megatrends research.
An Open Look at the Top Seven Criterion for Evaluating a Cloud Security SolutionPUBLISHED: Wed, 05 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Whether an attacker’s end goal is data exfiltration or holding your data hostage through ransomware, ultimately, the target is your data. Attackers will do whatever it takes to gain access to your data, stealing user credentials through phishing attacks, installing malware to silently open back doors, and traversing whichever parts of your network they need to make access happen. As the information technology landscape evolves and becomes increasingly complex, the complexities open new doors and attack vectors for attackers to leverage. Unfortunately, as the industry continues to shift toward more data stored in the cloud, traditional security approaches are losing their effectiveness.
Any Company can Transform Security with Cloud-Based Zero Trust Network AccessPUBLISHED: Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy With 85% of companies reporting a permanent increase in employees who work from anywhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic, secure remote access to corporate applications and data is more important than ever. A network team typically has no control over the local home office network or public Wi-Fi to which remote employees are connecting. These remote networks rely on unsecured internet connections to reach corporate resources. Moreover, remote employees are accessing applications and data that they previously accessed only within a corporate network perimeter. These resources must be protected.
2022 EMA Vendors to Watch: Network ManagementPUBLISHED: Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy EMA "Vendors to Watch" are companies that deliver unique customer value by solving problems that previously went unaddressed, or provide value in innovative ways. The designation rewards vendors that dare to go off the beaten path and have defined their own market niches. This document contains the 2022 EMA Vendors to Watch in the network management field, including MantisNet and Graphiant. DDI Maturity Drives Multi-Cloud Automation and SecurityPUBLISHED: Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This research report explores the state of DDI (DNS, DHCP, and IP address management) maturity in enterprises. It examines the drivers of DDI maturity, and the best practices and challenges associated with the technology. Based on a survey of 227 IT professionals, EMA prepared this research for BlueCat, a provider of DDI solutions.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research determined that investment in full-stack observability with SolarWinds can deliver millions in return on investment (ROI). These returns are earned through improved efficiency of IT operations, avoidance of capital expenditures, and improved business outcomes.
Asset Management (IT and Beyond): Current State and Near-Term OutlookPUBLISHED: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Now in its sophomore year, this research initiative provides practical field insight for IT practitioners involved in the day-to-day management of assets and IT service delivery. It offers the collective perspective of 300 global IT leaders, both today and in comparison to last year’s views. In 2021, ServiceNow commissioned Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) to conduct independent research that would establish a baseline for ongoing trend analysis.
Harnessing Kubernetes for Maximum Developer Productivity, Operations Efficiency, and Continuous SecurityPUBLISHED: Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk Digital transformation focuses on establishing corporate cultures, processes, and technologies that enable an organization to deliver more valuable products faster and more frequently, sustainably, and efficiently than the competition. This allows organizations to attract and retain valuable talent, since the most impactful people gravitate toward an environment where they can be productive and successful.
Accelerators of Digital Transformation Maximizing the Business Impact of PeoplePUBLISHED: Tue, 23 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk Digital transformation is about people first. Hence, the success of digital transformation directly depends on an organization’s ability to provide staff with the skills, information, motivation, and autonomy needed for optimal decision-making, effectiveness, and efficiency. This Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research provides a data-driven analysis of strategic goals, priorities, success factors, and accelerators of digital transformation. The report ties each argument to its ability to maximize the impact of “people” as the foundation for business success.
How a Network Observability Platform can Prepare Your NetOps Team for the FuturePUBLISHED: Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Hybrid, multi-cloud architectures are shaping the future of enterprise network operations (NetOps) teams. EMA research found that the top four strategic drivers of NetOps teams are public cloud, cloud-native applications, SaaS applications, and data center modernization.
Network Automation Provides a Foundation for NetSecOps ConvergencePUBLISHED: Tue, 16 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This white paper explores the growing importance of establishing an effective partnership between network operations and security operations teams. The paper also explains how a network automation solution can facilitate an effective partnership between these groups. This report was prepared for Blue Planet, a division of Ciena that delivers intelligent automation software solutions.
Network Visibility Architecture Will Make or Break Cloud TransformationPUBLISHED: Thu, 04 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This white paper, based on new research by EMA, provides insight and guidance to IT and cybersecurity leaders who are adapting their network visibility solutions to a hybrid, multi-cloud future. It identifies best practices for ensuring the delivery of network traffic data to performance and security analysis tools. EMA created this paper for Gigamon, a leading vendor in the network visibility industry.
Top 10 Points to Consider When Selecting a Zero Trust Network Access SolutionPUBLISHED: Thu, 04 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Zero trust is a set of principles designed to reduce or remove implicit trust in networked systems by addressing network identity, endpoint health, and data flows, to shift security focus from the network to users and devices. Going beyond the hype and technical jargon, zero trust is a safety net. It augments and reinforces the security measures of existing controls while allowing IT administrators to simplify and flatten their network.
Evolving Requirements for Digital Experience Management (DEX)PUBLISHED: Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen Over the past few years, businesses have reassessed embracing user-centric approaches to IT. In particular, the “modern management theory” postulates that job satisfaction predicates workforce productivity, rather than financial compensation. Applying this principle to the present day, use of IT requires digital technology to serve the workers, rather than the other way around.
Effective Solutions for Digital Experience Management (DEX) JulyPUBLISHED: Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen Traditional IT management practices are primarily business-centric. That is, they prioritize meeting business and IT efficiency requirements over that of user experiences. As such, traditional IT management toolsets natively include few features specifically targeted at improving employee satisfaction and productivity. To achieve modern management goals, IT solutions must address both business and user experience requirements simultaneously.
The Key to Creating Successful DevSecOps TeamsPUBLISHED: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner Today’s business relies on faster, more dependable delivery from internal technical teams. This reliance led to an increase in collaboration between information technology teams over the past few years, with DevOps teams and then with the addition of security to create a DevSecOps practice.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner Today’s business relies on faster, more reliable delivery from internal technical teams. This has led to an increase in collaboration between information technology teams over the past few years with DevOps teams, then with the addition of security teams to create a DevSecOps practice. This coordination focused on eliminating silos that are known to plague technical teams for years. However, for companies to realize the successes of these cross-functional teams, there must be a focus on three key pillars.
How Federal Departments and Agencies can Address the Packet Capture Requirements of White House Executive Order 14028PUBLISHED: Thu, 07 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy All United States federal departments and agencies are facing significant packet capture requirements that may force IT organizations to modernize infrastructure and operations. On May 12, 2021, the White House issued Executive Order 14028, which details policies and requirements for improving the federal government’s response to cybersecurity incidents. Among the several phased requirements for data retention related to digital infrastructure, the executive order includes a February 27, 2023 deadline for compliance with a new packet capture requirement. By that date, according to an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo, all federal agencies and departments must start capturing and retaining 72 hours’ worth of all packet data that traverses their networks, both on-premises and in the cloud.
Beyond Theory: Orchestrating Unified Identity SecurityPUBLISHED: Wed, 06 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen Modern businesses must deliver IT services to achieve organizational goals, enable workforce productivity, and drive profits. Unfortunately, the accessibility of digital resources also establishes significant vulnerabilities. Today, virtually all users—and all bots—have been granted some level of privileged access. Even mundane business apps, if compromised, can enable attackers to access the most sensitive business data.
Accelerating secure application developmentPUBLISHED: Wed, 06 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner In response to customer expectations for secure, always-on app experiences, digital transformations across development, operations, and delivery are on the rise. Alongside the need to push code faster, high-profile breaches and newly discovered vulnerabilities are reaching mainstream audiences more often, which also positions security as a top priority.
Report Summary: Network Visibility Architecture for the Hybrid, Multi-Cloud EnterprisePUBLISHED: Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the report summary for EMA's research, "Network Visibility Architecture for the Hybrid, Multi-Cloud Enterprise." Network Visibility Architecture for the Hybrid, Multi-Cloud EnterprisePUBLISHED: Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research explores how IT and security organizations use network visibility architectures to deliver network packets to critical performance and security analysis tools. It especially examines how organizations need to evolve their network visibility architectures as they adopt hybrid, multi-cloud architectures.
PUBLISHED: Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen In 1971, the first self-replicating virus (called Creeper) was unleashed across the ARPANET as a proof of concept. The virus itself was not designed to do any harm, but instead simply highlighted potential vulnerabilities in mainframe computers across the network. More humorous than destructive, this malware was mostly an annoyance, displaying the message “I’M THE CREEPER, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN” on infected systems. However, it did showcase the serious destructive potential for self-replicating malware in the future. Unfortunately, long gone are the days of “joke” malware, since modern malware is no laughing matter. Today, ransomware is one of the fastest-growing threats in the cybersecurity industry, designed to not only self-propagate, but encrypt all files or entire systems across a network.
Using Compliance Budget to Advance Security PrioritiesPUBLISHED: Tue, 21 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Organizations continue to prioritize security and security spending, but that spending is often at odds with a more pressing business priority: regulatory compliance. Regardless of the industry vertical, all businesses are required to deal with a certain amount of regulatory compliance or vendor due diligence. For technology leaders, the best solution is to partner with compliance/risk/governance teams to address compliance control gaps while advancing the company’s security priorities. One of the best approaches to this solution is to implement security resolutions that directly address remediation items from a control gap list, or by finding dual-purpose security solutions that solve a compliance-related challenge while augmenting security capabilities.
Beyond ITAM: Enterprise(wide) technology managementPUBLISHED: Wed, 15 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell From multi-cloud infrastructure and SaaS to work-from-anywhere devices and across data centers, IT technology is widely distributed at unprecedented levels of diversity, sheer numbers, and business criticality. Yet, ITAM tools often lag behind enterprise needs for enterprise-wide visibility, availability, and accuracy of information, locked in silos of specialized function.
2022 State of API SecurityPUBLISHED: Mon, 06 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen For years, security vendors have discussed DevSecOps solutions and the benefits they bring to the mature enterprise, but forecasted attacks on APIs and infrastructure as code (IaC) have put application security in the spotlight. Organizations of every size will invest in application security tools and tools that address every market of every size will have a decisive advantage to exploit this emerging trend. Modern applications, composed of functions and services, require developers to rely on APIs to communicate between applications and their components to share data and drive functionality. These applications are mobile, distributed, and have instances in cloud and on-premises.
Hybrid Work Requires Network TransformationPUBLISHED: Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Hybrid work, or working from anywhere, is the future, and the future has arrived. The pandemic mainstreamed it, but the benefits of hybrid work will ensure it sticks around. According to Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research, 85% of companies have experienced a permanent increase in the number of employees who work from home at least part time. Note the word “permanent.” Companies have clearly recognized that hybrid work has business benefits that deliver value indefinitely.
$11B European Retailer Reduces OpEx by $478,000 Moving to SolarWinds Full-Stack Observability SolutionsPUBLISHED: Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy An $11B European retail enterprise with more than 1,600 stores and warehouses across the world upgraded its IT operations toolset with a full-stack Observability suite from SolarWinds®. Over three years, the company has earned nearly $478,000 in operational expense savings against a total SolarWinds investment of $397,000. The SolarWinds investment paid for itself in two and a half years.
Communications Service Provider Saves Millions by Expanding to SolarWinds Full-Stack ObservabilityPUBLISHED: Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy After replacing several open-source monitoring tools with the components that make up the foundation of the full-stack SolarWinds® Hybrid Cloud Observability solution, a national communications service provider has saved more than $2 million in recurring annual costs. The service provider also leveraged the SolarWinds solution to avoid paying more than $2.6 million in fees for service-level agreement (SLA) violations by minimizing the impact of an infrastructure problem capable of affecting its customers.
Enterprise Cloud Operations Team Saves Millions With SolarWinds Full-Stack ObservabilityPUBLISHED: Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This return on investment (ROI) case study examines how a global software provider’s cloud operations organization earned a $5.4 million ROI by adopting a full-stack observability solution from SolarWinds. The observability solution streamlined performance management, capacity planning, and operational reporting, conservatively earning more than a 5x ROI over three years and breaking even in less than two years.
Responsible CIAM: Architecting High Security and Flexibility in Consumer EngagementsPUBLISHED: Thu, 19 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen For any modern business, the most essential outcomes derive from online interactions with consumer audiences. Web traffic and other online digital engagements are now the primary method organizations rely on for direct retail sales, account management, and to deliver ad-based services. Additionally, online resources have introduced whole new revenue streams with their ability to collect consumer information for resale on open markets. Regardless of an organization’s unique business model, consumer digital engagements are instrumental to achieving profitability and meeting organizational goals.
The Mainframe as the Foundation of the Modern EnterprisePUBLISHED: Thu, 19 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Technology continues to be at the center of the modern enterprise. More often than not, the success of the enterprise is directly related to the maturity of the information technology processes and solutions they have adopted. Companies that embrace and utilize technical advances can move from a small corner store to the names and logos people immediately recognize as part of everyday life. Nothing can be more critical to the continuing success of the enterprise than the computing power that has become the nerve center of the modern enterprise.
The Evolving Dynamics of Insider Risk, Privacy, and CompliancePUBLISHED: Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: EMA Staff With a global shift toward work from home and work from anywhere, organizations are struggling to find the right balance of protecting against insider threats and protecting employee privacy. With many employee devices now outside the network, traditional insider threat technologies are losing visibility. New privacy regulations present additional challenges to organizations. However, new approaches to insider threat detection may provide a better way forward.
AIOps automation: real-world challenges and rewardsPUBLISHED: Tue, 10 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Game-changing digital transformation initiatives and disciplines, such as DevOps and SRE, require new levels and types of interaction and automation for cross-domain workflows, efficiencies, and business outcomes. Enter the AIOps platform. Capable of powering staggering gains in efficiency and effectiveness, the one-two punch of AI/ML and automation blurs the lines between functional domains. EMA recently surveyed 406 IT professionals in North America, EMEA, and APAC to look at AI-enabled, cross-functional automation and processes as practiced today and as planned for the near future.
EMA Products to Watch in 2022/2023: Data-Driven Guidance for Product EvaluationPUBLISHED: Tue, 03 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk EMA created the “EMA Products to Watch in 2022/2023 Guide” for anyone looking for data-driven and transparent market research and product recommendations. Our guide includes many charts and data points interesting for C-levels skimming through while providing the depth needed for more technical roles aiming to dive into detailed market metrics and product characteristics. Note that this guide is a living project, with ”EMA Products to Watch” published on an ongoing basis.
Network Management Megatrends 2022: Navigating Multi-Cloud, IoT, and NetDevOps During a Labor ShortagePUBLISHED: Fri, 29 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy The 2022 edition of Enterprise Management Associates’ biennial “Network Management Megatrends” is the definitive benchmark of the state of enterprise network operations. Based on a survey of more than 400 IT organizations and one-on-one interviews with senior networking experts in Fortune 500 companies, this report should help network managers optimize operations while planning for future initiatives. PUBLISHED: Sat, 16 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy It is often said that packets are the best source of truth about what is happening on a network. With encryption, this axiom remains valid, but the means of revealing that truth are shifting. As encryption rises in popularity, traditional packet analytics are no longer as feasible as they once were.
Chart a Path to Digital Transformation with Application-Aware, AIOps-Driven Network Performance ManagementPUBLISHED: Mon, 11 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Prepared for IBM, this white paper draws on years of industry research by Enterprise Management Associates to explain why network operations teams must modernize their network performance management tools to support digital transformation. It explores the new requirements that IT organizations have for their tools and provides a step-by-step guide for choosing a new solution.
IT ServiceOps: innovation at business speed and scalePUBLISHED: Thu, 07 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell ServiceOps is not a product you can buy. It’s not even a methodology you can promote. It is a concept that captures the practical result of technology applied to the delivery and governance of IT services at the speed, scale, and volume of business innovation. It is AI-assisted automation for collaboration of IT service and IT operations.
EMA Research Report: A Data-Driven EnterprisePUBLISHED: Thu, 31 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner Today’s business relies on data analytics more than ever to remain ahead of the competition. To have a cutting edge, data analytics for informed business decisions and workflow automation at all levels of the organization is critical to achieve overall success. Due to the challenges over the last two years, organizations must respond to greater demand for data access and a shift to supporting AI/ML in a complex, hybrid multi-cloud environment. Organizations need to become nimble in providing fast, reliable access to data anytime, anywhere, throughout their increasingly complex, integrated enterprise. Research proves that demands on customer experience, the ever-growing challenge of staying ahead of risk and market swings, and employee engagement are the driving factors for these shifts.
AIOps means business: IT innovation for business advantagePUBLISHED: Tue, 29 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell AIOps’ roots run deep in the IT tradition of constantly doing more with less—and doing it better. For IT, that means automation. The catch with traditional IT automation is that there’s nothing automatic about it. It requires intelligence to construct and instruct the actions. When complexity and change reach a scale and velocity that far outstrip human capacity to comprehend, automation slams into a wall.
2022 EMA Vendors to Watch: Security and Risk ManagementPUBLISHED: Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: EMA Staff EMA "Vendors to Watch" are companies that deliver unique customer value by solving problems that previously went unaddressed, or provide value in innovative ways. The designation rewards vendors that dare to go off the beaten path and have defined their own market niches. This document contains the 2022 EMA Vendors to Watch in the security and risk management field, including ARMO, DuploCloud, and Telos. PUBLISHED: Wed, 23 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner Today’s business relies on access to critical data more than ever to remain ahead of the competition. Due to the challenges over the last two years, organizations must respond to greater demand for data access and a shift to supporting AI/ML in a complex, hybrid multi-cloud environment. Organizations need to become nimble in providing fast, reliable access to data anytime, anywhere, throughout their increasingly complex, integrated enterprise.
AI service automation: ITSM and ITOps convergencePUBLISHED: Thu, 10 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Digital transformation—the use of digital technologies to create or modify business processes, applications, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements—has been well underway for years. It simply got turbocharged with the dramatic and sudden events that rocked the globe. Five-year plans were compressed into months where possible as organizations fast-tracked strategic initiatives heavy on automation combined with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and analytics.
The Threat From Within: Strategies to Defend Against a Growing Threat VectorPUBLISHED: Thu, 24 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Paula Musich Threat researchers continue to document a disturbing shift in the source of big, expensive data breaches from external attackers to insiders, and multiple studies have documented an increase in the percentage of data breaches attributed to insiders.
Event management done right cuts incidents as well as MTTRPUBLISHED: Fri, 18 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Events—in IT as well as in life—are too numerous to count. Most often, an event’s true impact only becomes apparent in retrospect. In IT, that usually means a major incident or outage. When IT services degrade to the point of impacting business, it is all-hands-on-deck to find and fix the problem as fast as possible. Speed counts when mean time to resolve (MTTR) is measured in both revenue and pain.
The Future of Data Center Network AutomationPUBLISHED: Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Despite years of predictions about applications and data migrating to the public cloud, data centers remain the indispensable core of any digital infrastructure. Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) defines a data center as a site where a technology organization owns and operates the compute, storage, and network infrastructure necessary for hosting digital applications and services. A technology organization might have direct control of the data center site (e.g., on-premises data center, server rooms, a telco central office), or it might pay for rack space in a hosted environment (e.g., a colocation data center).
The Future of Data Center Network Automation: Summary ReportPUBLISHED: Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This is the summary for the EMA research report "The Future of Data Center Network Automation." Taking a Situational Awareness Approach to Proactive, Risk-Aligned SecurityPUBLISHED: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Every situation is different, and (in the case of information security) combating or defending the enterprise will likely depend on the parts most exposed to risk from an attack. You have to be aware of what parts of the enterprise are most at risk before you can ever know how to defend and protect it. Situational awareness is the cornerstone of a risk-based cybersecurity approach and critical for proactive security operations.
PUBLISHED: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Chris Steffen Hardly a month goes by without a news cycle of the latest cyber-attacks: from a software supply chain attack, to ransomware, to some kind of personal data exposure. They are so numerous that most people only pay attention when it is a “major” breach or happens to a company they have a relationship with. But more often than not, people are never told what really happened for a number of reasons: the companies involved do not want the negative publicity (they want the whole thing to “just go away”), there is an active criminal investigation, or the problem wasn’t really resolved completely. It is the last reason that may be the biggest source of concern: why would you not try to eliminate a known—and previously exploited—vulnerability from your environment?
Taking a Strategic Approach to Network OperationsPUBLISHED: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Many of today’s IT organizations are still taking a labor-intensive, manually executed, tactical approach to network operations, even as their infrastructures have grown dramatically in scope, scale, and complexity over time. They may be hindered by a lack of end-to-end visibility across their platform domains or the perception that newer and more scalable approaches, such as automation, may not be applicable to NetOps due to the uniqueness of network problem-solving technologies. In some cases, they simply lack a broader vision about how to scale operations because they don’t have the experience needed to think differently about the challenge.
Unknown Vulnerabilities Become the Top Active Directory Security Posture ConcernsPUBLISHED: Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Paula Musich As any security practitioner will tell you, trying to close exposures in Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD) is like trying to fill in the holes of a constantly morphing block of Swiss cheese. Because Active Directory’s configuration is in a continual state of flux, bad actors perpetually find new ways to exploit vulnerabilities to achieve their illicit aims. It’s no wonder that the top Active Directory security posture concern for most IT security practitioners is unknown AD vulnerabilities, followed closely by known but unaddressed AD vulnerabilities, according to new research conducted by Enterprise Management Associates on behalf of Semperis.
EMA Top 3 Enterprise Decision Guide 2022PUBLISHED: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) presents its EMA Top 3 Awards to software products that help enterprises reach their digital transformation goals by optimizing product quality, time to market, cost, and ability to innovate.
Debunking Eight Myths About Securing Active Directory Against Malicious AttackersPUBLISHED: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Paula Musich Securing Active Directory against exploitation by bad actors trying to leverage its privileges is a complex endeavor, made more difficult by the need to balance competing goals between endpoint administration and IT security teams. The complexity and depth of the directory system itself make it hard to find and fix the exposures and vulnerabilities that attackers seek to exploit. Clever attackers familiar with the directory system’s details can take any of the unique vulnerabilities or exposures and uncover an exponentially larger number of attack paths they can follow to get to their ultimate goal.
2022 EMA Vendors to Watch: Application and Performance ManagementPUBLISHED: Fri, 07 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Will Schoeppner EMA "Vendors to Watch" are companies that deliver unique customer value by solving problems that previously went unaddressed, or provide value in innovative ways. The designation rewards vendors that dare to go off the beaten path and have defined their own market niches. This document contains the 2022 EMA Vendors to Watch in the application management field, including Aiven and Nastel. AIOps: the difference between cloud survival and excellencePUBLISHED: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell New is always more interesting than what is already known. In that spirit, tech press coverage sometimes paints an apocalyptic picture of dust-covered data centers abandoned in wholesale migrations to the cloud. Although cloud adoption is certainly on the rise, it is erasing neither data centers nor IT complexity.
The Self-Driving Data Center in 2021PUBLISHED: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk The continuous automatic optimization of end-to-end application stacks can free up 50% of operator time by shattering the proportional relationship between adding more application capabilities and requiring additional human operators. If the required data streams are available, the self-driving data center (SDC) can free up the approximately 50% of data center and cloud infrastructure resources that are currently wasted through overprovisioning.
The Self-Driving Data Center in 2022: Start Small, but Start NowPUBLISHED: Wed, 22 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Torsten Volk The continuous automatic optimization of end-to-end application stacks can free up 50% of operator time by shattering the proportional relationship between adding more application capabilities and requiring additional human operators. If the required data streams are available, the self-driving data center (SDC) can free up the approximately 50% of data center and cloud infrastructure resources that are currently wasted through overprovisioning.
The State of Microsoft 365 Performance ManagementPUBLISHED: Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell Instinct and enterprise experience position Microsoft 365 as a suite of mission-critical capabilities that quietly power enterprise productivity on a daily basis. To be more specific, Martello commissioned EMA to conduct an entirely independent exploration of the state of Microsoft 365 as used in enterprises today. EMA fielded a research pool of 1,500 potential respondents in North America and Europe to vet 128 IT leaders to participate in this initiative.
ML-Driven Deep Packet Dynamics can Solve Encryption Visibility ChallengesPUBLISHED: Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy Encryption may provide data security and privacy, but it also reduces visibility into network traffic. Both security teams and network teams are finding that their deep packet inspection technology cannot provide enough insight into encrypted traffic. This white paper explores an emerging class of technology called deep packet dynamics, which combines metadata generation and traffic behavior with machine learning and advanced analytics to restore this lost visibility and enable improved collaboration between security and network teams.
Balancing the Scale Between Profitable Relationships and SecurityPUBLISHED: Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen EMA primary research identifies secure methods for reducing consumer identity and access management (CIAM) administration friction
The State of Network Automation: Configuration Management Obstacles are UniversalPUBLISHED: Thu, 18 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy This report details the findings of a market research study on network automation conducted by Enterprise Management Associates and Itential. It reveals that most IT organizations are struggling with network configuration management and are worried that their end-to-end networks will fail configuration compliance audits. Network automation can ease these concerns, as long as the network automation project starts with a strong focus on end-to-end configuration compliance. This report offers IT leaders a guide for how establish a strong foundation for network automation success.
Balancing the Scale Between Profitable Relationships and SecurityPUBLISHED: Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen Most modern businesses are dependent on consumer digital engagements to drive profitability and achieve organizational goals. Online resources—including web-based retail stores, ad-based entertainment, and consumer accounts—are the cornerstone of commercial service delivery. Unfortunately, public-facing IT services are supremely vulnerable to attack, and particular efforts must be made to protect consumer data and interactions to meet requirements for security and compliance.
PUBLISHED: Tue, 19 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen In the world of IT management, it is easy to forget that the primary focus should be on supporting people, not machines. This should be obvious, but the core precepts of endpoint management principally address ensuring system performance, rather than focusing on meeting end-user preferences. Client lifecycle management best practices target the standardization of endpoint and application configuration to simplify administration efforts. However, there is no universal configuration option that is equally optimal for all users. For instance, an environment that is too complex for one user may be too simplistic for another.
NetSecOps: Aligning Networking and Security Teams to Ensure Digital TransformationPUBLISHED: Mon, 18 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Shamus McGillicuddy For many years, EMA has observed signs that enterprises are trying to improve alignment between their network infrastructure and operations teams and their information security and cybersecurity teams. EMA market research has revealed increased collaboration between these groups. Also, vendors introduced solutions that facilitate this collaboration. For instance, network performance management vendors have started offering security solutions based on their existing intellectual property. In conversations with IT leaders, the importance of this collaboration comes up again and again. EMA refers to this expanding focus on network and security collaboration as NetSecOps.
EMA Radar Report for Workload Automation: Q4 2021PUBLISHED: Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Dan Twing Workload automation in 2021 reflects an even greater push to expand the category beyond traditional scheduling, toward full automation orchestration. The consolidation that occurred over the past four years slowed a bit, but is warming up again because Turn River Capital has invested in both Advanced Systems Concepts, Inc. and Redwood Software, with possibly more to come. This class of software is becoming more important to the future of digital transformation and automation. These trends have been developing over the last five or six years, but are now becoming more broadly accepted as a key part of the future of IT management. While most of the products reviewed for this report have seen many feature enhancements over the past two years, the category as a whole saw fewer new features across the category than the period from 2017 to 2019. Rather, the bulk of the changes from 2019 to 2021 were more about strengthening the features required to address the four biggest trends affecting this segment than net new capabilities.
EMA 2021 Workload Automation Radar Report SummaryPUBLISHED: Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Dan Twing This is the summary for the 2021 Workload Automation Radar Report. Identifying Effective Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Management Solutions: A Quantitative AnalysisPUBLISHED: Tue, 12 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Steve Brasen In recognition of the importance of improving workforce productivity, businesses have increasingly introduced solutions specifically designed to improve employee digital experiences. However, evolving requirements and challenges have obfuscated the types of technologies, solutions, and best practices that will most effectively drive increased end-user efficiencies and performance in the usage of digital resources. To help provide guidance on which approaches organizations should adopt, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) conducted primary, survey-based research into the requirements, challenges, solutions, and outcomes employed in real business conditions today.
IT Asset Management: Current State and Near-Term OutlookPUBLISHED: Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell IT complexity and change, sworn enemies of IT service quality and security, are on the rise. Crossing clouds and data centers, IT services, processes, and risks encompass users, devices, and non-IT technologies at the edge of enterprise business. Automation, analytics, and cross-domain workflows rightly receive attention as IT’s primary weapons against these escalating challenges. However, the fight is most often acted on the battleground of IT assets—physical, digital, on-premises, in clouds—throughout the enterprise.
IT Service Cost Tracking Impact: Research FindingsPUBLISHED: Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: Valerie O'Connell EMA’s field experience frequently shows a management blind spot when it comes to IT service cost tracking. Although most organizations track service quality in terms of SLAs or periodic user satisfaction, they are more likely to know the cost of individual assets than the true cost of each individual service that IT delivers to the business.
The Rise of Active Directory Exploits: ls it Time to Sound the Alarm?PUBLISHED: Thu, 30 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000AUTHOR: ~Former EMA Analyst - Paula Musich For years, Active Directory has been a prime target for attackers looking to get a leg up into high-value enterprise resources, but it has not been front and center in most enterprise security teams’ list of priorities. While gaining access to Active Directory elements, such as access control lists and privileged accounts, is not the end attackers are seeking. It most often delivers the means to get to those valuable assets, whether those include customer information, intellectual property, or operating data that can be held for ransom.
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