By Enterprises are told that AI outcomes depend on infrastructure and team readiness, not on buying the smartest model. But few teams can say what readiness means in practice. If you cannot list the assets that run the business and see how they are managed, AI has nothing reliable to work from.
In this interview on TFiR, Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology at ManageEngine, breaks down what enterprise AI readiness means, the five elements that generate business data, and why patching across mixed endpoints needs one UI.
Guest: Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology at ManageEngine
Show: The Agentic Enterprise
LinkedIn: Romanus Prabhu Raymond
Watch the discussion on YouTube
Here is what every IT operations leader needs to know.
Technical Deep Dive
Q: What does enterprise AI readiness actually mean?
Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology at ManageEngine, defines readiness from the management’s perspective: an enterprise has to manage its business, and a digital business depends on the assets that run it. Readiness means having visibility over those assets and managing and securing them. The question was framed around the idea that AI outcomes depend on infrastructure and team readiness rather than the smartest model.
“Now, managing a digital business depends on the assets that run the business.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: Which assets does an enterprise need to manage to run a digital business?
Raymond names five basic elements that generate data for the business: people identity, the endpoints people use for work, the applications on those endpoints, the infrastructure that connects everything, and the data all of these generate. Whether the environment is cloud or on-prem, it falls within these five.
“It could be in the cloud or on-prem; regardless of the environment, it will fall within these five major elements.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: What does it take to manage and secure enterprise assets?
The basic responsibility, according to Raymond, is to make sure those assets are managed. That covers visibility, provisioning, configuration, making changes and change management. The goal is a clear view of each asset so it can be managed and secured.
“So you want to have visibility, manage, and secure them.”Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: Why does patching work differently across Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile endpoints?
Enterprises run heterogeneous networks with Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile devices and servers. Raymond explains that patching is one process in principle, but it changes once it reaches the endpoint, depending on the endpoint type.
“”There is a single process called patching, but the process varies depending on the type of endpoint.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: Why do enterprises end up with so many endpoint management tools?
According to Raymond, these capabilities already exist in most enterprises, often as separate tools. One tool manages Mac machines, another manages Windows, another handles Linux, another handles applications, and another covers third-party application patching. All of it is already being managed, but in pieces.
“You have one tool for managing Mac machines, another for managing Windows machines, one for Linux, and separate tools for application management and third-party application patching.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: Can one UI manage endpoints across operating systems and applications?
Raymond says ManageEngine is giving customers a toolset in one UI, so they can manage this foundational layer in one place. He describes that as the basis for everything above it.
“Now, from ManageEngine, we are enabling the customers with toolset from one UI.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Q: What comes after the basic assets are managed?
Once visibility and management of the basics are in place, Raymond says enterprises can do better operations governance from the upper layer. Governance is built on top of managed assets rather than in place of them.
“Once that is done, you should be able to achieve better operational governance at the higher level.” Romanus Prabhu Raymond, Director of Technology, ManageEngine
Resources & Documentation
- Zia Agents, ManageEngine’s AI agents
- Endpoint Central, an endpoint management product
- Site24x7, a monitoring product
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Swapnil Bhartiya: Yeah, you mentioned Rajesh, and I remember at the Jakarta conference, he also mentioned that, I mean, I’m kind of paraphrasing him, is that the AI outcome will not come from the smartest model you can buy. Yeah. You know, it comes from the readiness of your infrastructure and your team. So, and myself as a consumer, business depends on AI, I fully agree with it, but Can you just elaborate a bit? Because you’re also touching on the same point. What does that readiness actually mean? What does it look like for customers? And because you can help customers, you can bring the horse to the lake, but if the lake has no water, you cannot. So readiness, talk about readiness. What do you mean?
Romanus Prabhu Raymond: Okay, so readiness, from the management’s perspective, there’s an enterprise. Right? Now it has to manage its business. Now managing a digital business is depending on the assets that runs the business. So what basically, what are your assets? Your people identity is an asset. And they use the endpoint. for work, that’s an asset. And the endpoint has application, that’s an asset. The application is the entire infrastructure is going through the infrastructure what you have provided for connecting everything. And all these things combined together generate data. Now, these are the basic 5 elements which generate data for the business. And Which is basically running the business. Now, the basic responsibility is to ensure that you manage those assets, have visibility, and then do provisioning, configurations, make changes, change management. It could be a cloud, it could be an on-prem, whatever that matters, it’s going to be within these 5 major elements. So you want to have visibility, manage, secure them. Now, when you have this clarity, you might have multiple tools. Say for example, for patching your endpoints, you might have heterogeneous network, Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile devices, servers. There is a single process called patching. But when it goes, boils, bounds to the endpoint, depending on the type of endpoint, the process changes. Mm-hmm. Now, this basically is already available in enterprises. You have maybe with different tools, you have one tool for managing Mac machines, you have one tool for managing all your Windows, one for Linux, one for applications, third-party application patching. Now, all these things are already available being managed. Now, from ManageEngine, we are enabling the customers with toolset from one UI. You should be able to entirely manageability. Now, that is the basis which ensures that you are enabling them to manage this basic stuff. Once that is done, you should be able to do better, operations governance from the upper layer.
