Why AI Needs Secure Remote Network Management

AI is quickly becoming an inseparable part of many business tasks and directly impacts the quality and effectiveness of many processes. There is diversity in the business processes that can be significantly improved and optimized with artificial intelligence tools.

Despite a huge interest in the new AI tools, there are still plenty of controversial questions regarding security or how to act during some unpredictable issues or system problems.

An AI system should not just function somehow, but be available even in case of a cybersecurity attack, during outages, or other issues and problematic scenarios. To get such a level of reliability, it is crucial to have a robust underlying infrastructure that guarantees a more secure environment in general.

Why Reliable AI Is Crucial for Business Success

When something goes wrong with the AI system, everybody within the team, as well as most of the clients, feels an immediate impact. The impact level can be different, as well as further consequences, but any downtime can lead to such results as:

• Compliance and safety risks.
• Loss in revenue.
• Loss of sensitive data.
• Lowering of customer experience.

The obvious question arises: why can't IT professionals immediately address the issue? The problem is that a traditional approach is based on the shared management plane. That means most of the processes are interconnected, so that management access relies on the same network as AI production. When the management process is based on the production network, professionals lose access during such incidents as cyber-attacks, outages, and other similar scenarios.

The traditional approach heavily relies on the production network. That means when the production device experiences some issues, then the admin access is also unavailable.   

That’s why, new secure remote management approach should be used, and the best possible option is called IMI or Isolated Management Infrastructure.

Defining Isolated Management Infrastructure (IMI)

IMI, or Isolated Management Infrastructure, works by isolating the production and access network. IMI is exclusively used for all the management processes within the infrastructure that relate to the storage devices, servers, switches, and more.

That means when something goes wrong with the production network, IT experts have a chance to fix the issues and guarantee a higher system reliability. So, you can have good access control despite all the possible online risks.

Key Ways IMI Improves the Stability of AI Systems

1. Always accessible infrastructure. IMI gives access to all the important tasks such as rebooting, deeper diagnostics, and patching.
2. Secure automation. There are some IT experts who apply each and every update because they are afraid that missing something can lead to serious security problems. Well, in some situations, they are right, but there are scenarios when new updates may not be effective. With IMI, admins get a safe environment where they can test all the changes before actually using them or safely roll back with the golden image.
3. Quick solution for some issues. With IMI, it is possible to react to the issues right away, without the need for the prime system recovery. It is possible to launch SIRE and deal with the current attack in real-time.
4. Duty separation. Management traffic separation limits the possible level of damage, and it is possible to use/roll back some config changes.  

Comparing IMI with Traditional Out-of-Band Management

OOB management is a part of lots of reliable approaches, but it is mostly suitable for one device backup path, like an IPMI port or serial console. However, this method might not be the best possible variant for all cases.

IMI is a broader variant where the process functions based on scalability, security, and independence from AI workloads. That’s why IMI can be accepted as a huge management backbone, not just a secondary approach.

Real-World Application: Financial Sector

Most financial organizations can use AI tools for the detection of suspicious activity or fraud. During a misconfiguration case, LLMs can stop receiving real-time information.

So, without IMI, IT experts won’t have the possibility to access the system and change or fix something. However, with IMI, it is possible to solve the major issues within a couple of minutes. The quickness of reaction plays a crucial role in the minimization of reputation damage and possible fines.

Real-World Application: Manufacturing Industry

When talking about the manufacturing industry, an AI-driven approach can help with the immediate detection of possible defects. The specific failure can be spotted at several nodes, and that may lead to huge further issues.

With IMI, the experts can roll back some unnecessary updates, minimize downtime, and return the system to normal functioning within the shortest possible period of time.

Designing Infrastructure for Robust and Reliable AI

Robust and reliable AI begins earlier than you can ever imagine. It starts from the infrastructure layer. That’s why we decided to share some helpful recommendations regarding the usage of IMI:

• The management network should be fully isolated from all the production processes.
• Admin tasks should be done with role-based permissions and a zero-trust access approach for getting a higher level of security.
• Take some time and support, automation, 5G, serial switches, Ethernet switches, and other basic functions.
• Try to create the best possible scalability through the edge locations, data centers, and colocation sites.

When treating management access as the most crucial task, you can get the most reliable and secure system.