Concerned with making “every citizen digital”, Edge in New Jersey is working to provide ultra high-speed broadband access for all, and can be viewed as a catalyst for bringing the benefits of an innovative, digital economy and society to the region.
Edge lies at the very heart of this economic development initiative, continuing to address the digital divide – a prerequisite for the region’s continued economic and social development – and to provide researchers and students across the region with access to world-class connectivity and services.
Edge’s continued role involves leading the way and acting as an innovator while continuing to deliver services and solutions not easily found elsewhere. While research and education networks are designed not just to support, but also to stimulate research, innovation and flow of content, the ability to allocate resources for deploying new services for users and add value through services is more important than ever. Edge’s Science DMZ, now a vital portion of our segmented optical fiber network topology, allows institutions to connect to an environment tailored to the needs of higher performance science driver applications. With this investment, Edge can now adequately support the science driver areas vital to advancing technology transfer programs, accelerating research, and providing direct access to Internet2 routes. Moreover, the Science DMZ supports direct 400 Gbps access to cloud storage and other network devices that integrate into a unified whole to provide a foundation for state, regional, and national research collaborations.
One prominent term today with regard to technology strategy, value, and return-on-investment is digital transformation. This term is no longer ambiguous and now refers to how institutions in the education, health care, and government sectors are changing the way they operate. Digital transformation represents a foundational change in how an organization delivers value and marks a radical rethinking of how an organization uses technology, people, and processes to fundamentally change performance and outcomes. With respect to how institutions now need to operate in the new century, digital business transformation is the process of exploiting digital technologies and supporting capabilities to create a robust new digital business model.
We know digital transformation means a fundamental rethinking about what we do with technology in organizations.
Core components for success include big data, cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) as firmly established trends in the digital transformation sphere, and must form an integrated strategy for forward-looking organizations. With thought leadership provided by Edge, digital transformation across the entire institution works together to put the student, faculty, researcher, alumni, patient, or citizen experience first. Further, the institution develops the ability to combine data from the new digital processes to decide on and power its next transformation.
In this economic reality where entire industries are disrupted, actionable intelligence is the new currency. As the educational, health care and government sectors become more competitive, digital transformation is now becoming a necessary means of survival as our new digital world requires institutions to adapt and adopt digital technologies, methodologies, and mindsets.