How AIOps Turns MENA's Data Overload Into Real Insights
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AIOps transforms IT operations across the Middle East by converting data overload into real-time insights, reducing tech debt, and boosting efficiency.
'Data is the new oil' is an often-stated phrase. And while for decades, petroleum has fuelled the Middle East's transformation, today, data is the accelerator of the region's progress. But just as the true potential of oil is realised from the refinement of crude, it's only when the data deluge is effectively analysed that invaluable insight can be extracted. However, this is going to be a significant challenge given the volume of global data is set to rise from 2 zettabytes in 2010 to a forecasted 394 zettabytes by 2028.
The Middle East is facing a well-documented IT skills shortage, so managing this flood is overwhelming to an already overstretched IT teams, whose current approaches to data management simply can't keep up with the exponential growth in scale and complexity. Without a digital lifeline, they're at risk of an information overload that could obscure data analysis, delay decision-making and impede commercial growth.
Enter AIOps, which can help businesses manage vast amounts of data by surfacing the most critical issues in real-time – allowing IT teams to address problems faster and allocate resources where they're needed most, ultimately, providing a significant competitive advantage. In particular, the evolution of AIOps now includes generative, predictive, and agent-based capabilities that offer context-rich insights, early warning systems, and low-code automation—enabling IT teams to move from firefighting to foresight.
Traditional approach leads to 'tech debt'
The Middle East Digital Transformation Market is estimated at US$50.26 billion this year, and is expected to reach US$149.34 billion by the end of the decade. This rapid growth means rapidly scaling environments and greater levels of complexity. And while IT budgets are often directed towards the next transformative paradigm, often foundational elements such as software, data source and monitoring tools are overlooked. As a result, seemingly modern IT environments often have legacy systems, requiring significant manual oversight, which is time-consuming and prone to error.
By design, these systems also fail to provide a holistic view of the IT ecosystem and it's the lack of transparency that makes it difficult to identify patterns or predict potential issues in a world where data is everywhere. What's left is an over-reliance on under-resourced IT teams that are tasked with locating, protecting and utilising a completely unmanageable amount of information.
Updating or replacing these existing solutions involves considerable time and money. However, persisting with inefficient and outdated systems will likely incur 'tech debt' – the financial burden of constantly needing to update aspects of a digital estate to meet the demands of new projects. Essentially, neglecting digital transformation will result in repetitive and costly business expenses moving forward. If organisations hope to align themselves with the forward-focused agendas of regional governments – whether that's Saudi Arabia or Qatar's Vision 2030, Oman's Vision 2040, or the Emirates' 'We the UAE 2031' vision – they need a more proactive solution.
AIOps, gleaning clarity from chaos
AIOps has the power to transform organisational IT management thanks to the way it harnesses machine learning and advanced analytics. By allowing these platforms to oversee their data, organisations can effortlessly deal with the technical disruptions that would otherwise be buried within increasingly complex digital estates.
AIOps doesn't just react to issues; it predicts them too. By analysing real-time and historical data, it detects patterns that signal future interruptions, allowing teams to act before problems impact users. The latest advances even integrate predictive analytics with graphical root cause analysis and proactive remediation suggestions—empowering IT to prevent disruptions rather than chase them.
Automating repetitive tasks frees IT professionals for strategic initiatives while streamlining processes and optimising budgets, and platforms offering AIOps for observability provide a single window into IT ecosystems – reducing blind spots and generating insights that protect performance across applications. The addition of generative AI into this mix helps IT teams surface the right information without long chat threads or manual querying, accelerating the decision-making process further.
AIOps enables organisations to cut through the chaos, offering a comprehensive view of digital operations and helping them focus on the information that truly matters to them.
Why a data store matters
For businesses to integrate technology that helps them comprehensively monitor the behaviour of IT systems, their information needs to be easily accessible – which is exactly why data stores are another key part of the AIOps equation.
Imagine an organisation's digital infrastructure as a sprawling library. Each department functions like a separate wing, with bookshelves stacked high with unique collections of knowledge. If an IT team needed to locate specific information, they'd have to manually sift through countless aisles, searching for scattered volumes hidden in different sections.
A centralised data store is like upgrading this library with a digital cataloguing system and an interconnected archive. Instead of wasting time hunting down individual books, teams can instantly access, analyse, and utilise the information they need. Such a digital asset can be the difference between a failed and a successful AI strategy.
Combined with agentic AI—task-specific, customisable automations that don't require code—these capabilities allow organisations to not only understand their data, but act on it in real time through orchestrated workflows that blend human insight with machine precision.
However, an inability to build a repository large enough is often a major stumbling block for many businesses, particularly as datasets become more immense than ever before. With the help of pre-built infrastructures, IT teams needn't worry about finding more capacity. Instead, they can reap the scalable, secure and accessible rewards of having a unified data ecosystem.
Embrace the transformative power of AIOps
As governments in the Middle East strive to increase the digital economy's contribution to overall GDP, data isn't just an operational byproduct—it's a strategic asset. Businesses that harness it effectively can identify trends faster, enhance customer experiences, and outpace competitors. A recent Riverbed survey revealed that 91% of businesses agree that AI provides a competitive advantage. As organisation now seek to embrace the most impactful AI use cases, AIOps present the perfect opportunity. It automates data management and streamlines disparate systems, transforming organisations into agile, data-driven enterprises.
With new advances in generative, predictive and agent-based AI now embedded into the AIOps fabric, organisations are better equipped than ever to unlock smarter insights, enable faster response, and drive autonomous operations.
As data volumes surge, businesses face a choice—struggle to keep up or embrace AIOps to enhance security, efficiency, and innovation. By shifting from reactive to proactive, organisations can truly master, rather than temporarily mitigating, their data overload.
By Salman Ali, Senior Manager – Solution Engineering, GCC, Riverbed Technology
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