A couple of years ago, we published a series on pre-cognitive OSS based on the following quote by Ben Evans about three classes of search/discovery:
- There is giving you what you already know you want (Amazon, Google)
- There is working out what you want (Amazon and Google’s aspiration)
- And then there is suggesting what you might want (Heywood Hill).
Today, I look to apply a similar model towards the holy grail of OSS – Zero Touch Assurance (ZTA).
- Monitoring – There is monitoring the events that happen in the network and responding manually
- Post-cognition – There is monitoring events that happen in the network, comparing them to past events and actions (using analytics to identify repeating patterns), using the past to recommend (or automate) a response
- Pre-cognition – There is identifying events that have never happened in the network before, yet still being able to provide a recommended / automated response
The third step, pre-cognition, is where the supposed holy grail lies. It’s where everyone talks about the prospect of AI solving all of our problems. It seems we’re still a way off this happening.
But I wonder whether the actual ZTA solution might be more of a brute-force version of step 2 – post-cognition?
More on that tomorrow.